Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, the former National Publicity Secretary of the defunct New People’s Democratic Party (nPDP), has publicly dared the President’s Special Assistant on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, to return to his hometown of Ijebu Ode without security and publicly shout “Up Tinubu” a bold challenge meant to test whether the presidency’s glowing account of the economy matches Nigerians’ lived reality.

 

Eze issued the challenge while condemning what he described as the Tinubu administration’s failure to tackle a deepening economic crisis that, he says, has plunged more than 70 percent of Nigerians into hardship. He said the government must not mistake sober, well-meaning criticism for political grandstanding, and argued that propaganda from the corridors of power cannot hide the “hyper-inflation and inhuman policies” he says are tormenting ordinary citizens.

 

The exchange follows a heated public spat after former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar warned that pervasive hunger and poverty in Nigeria risked sparking unrest comparable to past revolutions. The Presidency, through Mr. Bayo Onanuga, dismissed Atiku’s comments as “grossly misleading” and out of touch with what it called positive economic developments. Onanuga’s rebuttal prompted Eze’s blistering response.

 

“I don’t blame Onanuga for his response,” Eze said, arguing that defending the administration’s record requires little courage when one is embedded in power. He challenged the presidential aide, whom he noted is Yoruba,  to test public sentiment in his own backyard: “I dare him to travel to his hometown of Ijebu Ode, without security and shout, ‘Up Tinubu!’ three times,” Eze said, insisting a random poll among Onanuga’s kinsmen would reveal deep dissatisfaction.

 

Eze also asked critics within the President’s circle to stop attacking dissenting voices and instead urge Mr. Tinubu to return to the drawing board and craft “strategic, result- and people-oriented policies” that can soften the severe economic pain affecting millions. He argued that propaganda and denunciations of critics are poor substitutes for policies that deliver relief.

 

The Presidency has maintained that macroeconomic indicators point to recovery and warned against alarmist rhetoric. The unfolding public back-and-forth between former and current public officials underscores the fraught political atmosphere as Nigerians debate the depth of the country’s economic problems and the government’s response.