By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

ATTACKS on Mrs Remi Tinubu, and her family, on her small business ideas, are direct darts on the messenger and the message. The reasons are simple but difficult for the overwhelmingly rich (by the confessions of the Tinubu), powerful Tinubu family, to understand.

Most Nigerians see the Tinubus as the trouble with Nigeria, at least the part we have survived in the past three years of Renewed Hope.

When Muhammadu Buhari left, many thought that Nigerians would have a relief. They didn't see the fallacy in renewing a hope that never existed.

Their anger that had been shot at the Tinubus are rooted in the arrogance of the Tinubus, their display of their renowned resources, much of which the public believes belongs to Nigerians.

While the Tinubus feel they own Nigeria, can decide how Nigerians feel, think that they have done so well that they are in shock that the public pooh-poohed Mrs Tinubu's business idea.

Nigerians do not believe that the cause of their challenges can offer them solutions. That's how they see Alhaji Tinubu, Mrs Tinubu, Iyabo Tinubu-Ojo, Seyi. All of them are seen as major disruptions in the lives of Nigerians, flaunting wealth, wasting resources at a time of immense financial pressures from economic policies that Tinubu pulls off his hat whenever he wants.

Without empathy, out of touch with how Nigerians grind through life, the Tinubus speak to us mockingly, condescendingly and with a lot of contempt. Their thesis is that we are lazy and need to be talked down on.

They have a retinue of spokespersons who drill down the insults. Maintained at high expense to Nigerians, they have no idea that they are our servants.

Only if the Tinubus know how Nigerians survive, they would be apologising to us daily for interrupting our lives and speaking with such puffed up ignorance.

What expertise does Remi Tinubu have in Akara business? Which part of the Akara business will N50,000 set up in an economy Alhaji Tinubu wrecked by removing petroleum subsidy and floating the Naira?

Eight years of Buhari’s remarkable failures behind us, we soldiered on, not realising the emptiness of Tinubu's agenda. We have been on our own. We advised ourselves.

Our farms are deserted as bandits take over. They kill our people, displaying the attendant savagery on social media. What does Tinubu do?

He is campaigning for re-election to continue the suffering his policies brought on Nigerians. Mrs Tinubu is busy distributing cars to her loyalists.

Children are in the forests, in the rainy season. Some of them are too young to be away from their parents. Nobody knows how they are faring. More are being abducted from different parts of Nigeria.

Tinubu won't say anything. He avoids discussing bandits. He just wants to win the 2027 election, take more foreign loans, bear the notoriety of operating three different budgets in one year, yet expecting everybody to genuflect before him.

In what country will bandits, so known, go on pilgrimage, through our airport, no illegal routes and it is considered normal? The Federal Government remains mute. No official has been suspended or fired. None will be.

The same Katsina where bandits kidnapped a retired General of the Nigerian Army who died in captivity has scored again by having bandits who go on pilgrimage. We don't know how many were not caught. The matter has ended

Government, the one that Tinubu lead is so distant and disconnected from the people that if it knew it, government would just leave us alone. But it won't because elections are near. Tinubu is more desperate by the day.

Whether he is undemocratising the political process, draining life out of us or being unable to challenge bandit on Nigerian spaces, he has failed woefully. He knows it.

Those who jump to his defence or the wife's, claiming we misunderstood them, are misjudging us.

Mrs Tinubu knows nothing about Akara and the volume of the business. She talks without depth and expects us to listen. When we don't, she will be angry - she is that entitled.

"I am a Nigerian, and I am officially exhausted. Same thing, every year, only amplified.” Top actress Ireti Doyle thus captured Nigeria in an X post. She does not need a grant to market kulikuli, but Nigeria exhausts her. What will Mrs Tinubu do for her?

She wants a peaceful, safe setting to use her skills. Must she jump from city to city to sing about a mangled mandate to live?

On all sides she is threatened. Seasonal floods that are of no concern to the authorities overwhelm her.

Millions of Nigerians are in worse situations than Mrs Doyle. They want to be left alone to figure out their present. The Tinubus speak about the future, they want us to live in the future because they have nothing to offer today.

Were Mrs Tinubu attentive, aware of her environment, her office if peopled by those who fish out information that would assist the great work Nigerians expected from their First Lady, they would have known about Akara. There has always been more to Akara than the Tinubus can understand.

Barely, three months after the Tinubus came to power, the University of Uyo, a federal institution, held a major symposium to accord Akara its economic and cultural place in our society.

What I liked about this otherwise ordinary symposium the university held is the multi-dimensional approach that transverses culture, gender economy, production, technology, health and the historicisation of akara production at a location on Ibiam Street by Enenwan Linus Hanson in Uyo over 40 years!

Akara on Ibiam Street is going on its 43rd year on that street.

Each of the areas lends itself to vast exploration with ranging linkages to other foods and economic activities that hold real value chains. It is also a call for the interrogation of the routes our foods travel and their economic sequences and consequences.

At the instance of the university’s Department of History & International Affairs, the seminar pulled in the Department of Food Science & Technology, Department of Home Economics, and the Centre for Gender Studies.

Has Mrs Tinubu heard of the University of Uyo symposium? She can find out about Akara and what it has been to the community in Uyo that has sent thousands of their off-springs to university, thanks to Akara.

There is the Bolé festival in Port Harcourt supporting and promoting street foods like plantain, fishes and vegetables that titillate the palates. No First Lady told them to do these.

Other States have events that promote local foods, mostly without government support.

What did Nigerians expect the Tinubus to do? Make Nigeria more likeable by providing security and electricity. We will create the jobs and pay taxes.

The unsightly display of wealth by the Tinubus at a time of heightened hardships mocks the efforts of hardworking Nigerians, and especially those who have been swept to extreme poverty and for whom hope renewed means a few cups of rice promised that may never reach them.

Finally...

ENUGU is changing by the minute. Some people say it is all propaganda. I intend to find out - and I'll let you know.

THE traditional ruler of Okpella Kingdom in Etsako East Local Government Area of Edo State, King Michael Sado, has abolished the payment of electricity bills in the community. The directive by the traditional ruler will come into effect (July 1), will eliminate individual payment of electricity bills in the cement town. The traditional ruler said the free electricity initiative will guarantee uninterrupted power supply to homes, business premises, schools, and healthcare facilities, while relieving residents of the community of financial burden associated with electricity bill payment. The details are awaited.

I STAND with Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamil, Chief of Staff to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. No one person is capable doing all the things they accuse him of doing on the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, PFIPC. A proper investigation should be done to unveil this evil campaign that tends to brand President Tinubu as sleeping on his charge. I also thank Prince Matthew Adeniyi Adeyemi, who identifies himself as the Director-General of the PFIPC, for his courage. He is the second person to accuse Gbajabiamila of corruption, officially, openly. Before him, Victor Ochei, former Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, dragged Gbajabiamila to EFCC, accusing him of receiving money from him for appointment as Director-General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA. Nothing came out of the case. Gbajabiamila's integrity and by extension the President's, is at stake on PFIPC. Nobody should, even for a second, believe that Prince Adeyemi has nothing to prove, protect, and provide.

SOLDIERS invaded female hostels of Osun State University mal-handled them, abused them, and stole their phones and laptops. The cause of the aggression has not been established. The Army's PR brought some comedy into an otherwise serious matter. "We do not train our soldiers to behave that way," the Army said. Doesn't this suggest the soldiers could be fake.

•ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues.

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