Mr President, Your 66th Independence Speech Made Me Sad – Dele Momodu

By Gideon Njoku

Dele Momodu, a chieftain of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, has described President Bola Tinubu’s Independence Day address to Nigerians  as depressing.

Picking on the President’s comment that morphine was only a palliative when treating cancer and not a cure, Momodu said while morphine lessened cancer pain, President Tinubu’s surgery has worsened the disease, made it spread, and taken it to stage-four cancer. Tinubu had said that his predecessors were treating cancer with morphine to reduce the pains instead of operating  on it.

President Tinubu’s  speech the former Tinubu political ally said turned the anniversary into a day of lamentation instead of celebration.

In a post on X, the

Momodu, a former Presidential Candidate wrote:

“Dear Mr. President, please allow me to wish you a Happy Independence Day on our 66th anniversary. I won’t spend too much time, Sir.

“I just watched and heard your speech on TV, and I have to be honest. I wasn’t really impressed. Today was meant to be a happy day, but your speech made it feel like a sad day instead.

“My heart felt heavy as you compared Nigeria to a cancer patient who only survived by taking painkillers, and then you came as a famous doctor who could finally help.

“You clearly stated that morphine was the preferred drug by your previous team. I’m not sure this analogy was appropriate. When you took over, Nigeria was probably in the second stage of cancer, at worst.

“You were supposed to stop it from getting worse and not let it turn into stage-four cancer. Your first prescription on day one was a huge mistake.”

On day one of Mr President on the job, he scrapped subsidy on fuel, an action he led a protest against for days during the President Goodluck Jonathan Government.