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Dear Mr. Bolaji Abdullahi, Fmr Honourable Minister under GEJ, Fmr APC publicity secretary, Fmr PDP stalwart, Fmr State Commissioner, Fmr State Governor’s Aide. In politics since 2003 @BolajiADC There is a certain elegance to your message, sharp, emotional, deliberate. But there is also a certain amnesia to it, selective, strategic, convenient. Whilst it is unfortunate you chose the birthday of our President to highlight this amnesia, permit me, sir, to speak to it. Three things can be true at once: a nation can reinvent itself, a government can act, and a people can endure. You speak of hardship as though you discovered it. You speak of insecurity as though it began yesterday. You speak of governance as though you were never inside the room when decisions were made. You have not just criticised but you have made an attempt at reinventing history. Yes, Nigerians are hurting in some areas. Yes, fuel prices have risen, sharply, painfully, undeniably even though President Bola Tinubu has made cheaper alternatives availabke. But let us not pretend this storm began this morning. For years, we subsidised illusion, deferred reality, borrowed comfort, and let rent-seekers take hold of our Commonwealth. You know this more then many, sir. For years, Nigeria built a system where cheapness was artificial and sustainability was optional. Now the correction has come, and suddenly, those (including you and many members of your new-found contraption) who midwifed the distortion have become its loudest critics. The Tinubu-Shettima administration did not remove subsidy because it was easy. We removed it because it was necessary. Hard choices, real consequences, no pretence. Here is the antithesis you glide past so effortlessly. What feels like punishment today is what prevents collapse tomorrow. We endure to rebuild, not rebuild to endure On security, your words carry weight, but not balance. Nigeria did not become insecure in a single administration, nor will it be secured by a single speech. The threats we face are multi-layered including insurgency, ‘glocal’ terrorism, organised crime, cross border networks. Yet capacity of our systems have improved, security coordination has tightened, investments in intelligence and equipment have increased. Is it enough? No. Is it nothing? Also no. To describe a nation contending and fixing structural issues as a nation collapsing is not analysis, it is exaggeration. And exaggeration may win applause, but it does not build solutions. You invoke grief, and rightly so. Every life lost diminishes us. But grief must not become a tool for theatre. Because while you speak of failure, you carefully omit history, the years when these fires were lit, the years when you and those in power chose delay over decision. You were not a spectator then. You were an integral part of the system. On the economy, the strain was real. Prices were high but are coming back down. Pressures were visible yet we have mostly stabilised. But reforms are not judged in headlines, they are judged in trajectories. FX stability is improving. Revenues are strengthening. Investment signals are returning. You do not fix decades in months. You correct distortions and direction, then you build momentum as President Bola Tinubu is doing. We are not where we want to be. But we are no longer where we were. And then democracy and your quiet warning of a one party state. Yet here you are, criticising loudly, freely, publicly. A democracy that permits this level of dissent is not shrinking, it is alive. Imperfect, noisy, contested, but alive. This is the paradox your message cannot resolve. You criticise a system you once helped shape. You condemn outcomes without acknowledging inputs. You demand urgency now, but defended patience then. We shape our narratives, and then our narratives shape us. Nigeria is not perfect. Nigeria is not painless. Nigeria is not instant. But Nigeria is not what you are trying to sell either. 1/2 cont’d.

@Olaitan_qd @Uptownoflagos @egi_nupe Tell him to challenge me now, his receipt full everywhere, you are supporting a fraud.