Prof Usman Yusuf, a prominent member of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) and former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), has sharply criticized President Bola Tinubu’s “Renewed Hope Agenda,” implying that it had turned into ‘renewed hopelessness’.
During his appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, Prof Yusuf expressed dismay over the failure of the Tinubu-led federal government to deliver on its promises of injecting hope into the Nigerian populace.
“Rather than inject the Nigerian people with some hope capsules, the Tinubu-led federal government had made Nigerians more hopeless in the last one year,” Yusuf asserted.
He lamented the dire situation faced by many Nigerians, citing the distribution of palliatives as emblematic of the government’s failure to address fundamental issues.
“People have lost hope. It pains me to see our people lining up to collect cups of palliatives. Renewed Hope has turned into hopelessness. People have lost hope,” he remarked.
Yusuf characterized the past year under the Tinubu administration as marked by deception, destitution, and hopelessness, criticizing the government’s economic management team as “tax collectors” rather than “economists.”
“The economic team, to me, looks more like tax collectors than economists. Taxation does not grow the economy; only production does,” he emphasized.
President Tinubu’s campaign on the mantra of “Renewed Hope” promised a revitalization of the country’s prospects, but according to Yusuf, this promise has not materialized, leaving many Nigerians disillusioned and struggling.
