Dr Abdul-Jhalil Tafawa Balewa, a former PDP presidential aspirant, has urged Nigerians to be patient with President Bola Tinubu, saying he inherited a near-bankrupt nation, but trying hard to put things right.
Tafawa-Balewa made the statement in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Lagos.
According to him, if a nation is near zero, rescuing it and setting it on a path of recovery is always very hard.
He, however, said the president needed to do much more to reposition the country and address its many challenges.
Tafawa-Balewa urged Tinubu to reduce the cost of governance to free up resources for development as a step towards putting things right.
The politician also urged Tinubu to strengthen his cabinet with technocrats who could help actualise his development agenda for Nigeria.
“He (President) needs to be able to move with the times and put people that have moved out or have learned new technologies to be able to manage the different ministries.
“I think we have too many ministries, about 48, that need to be slimmed down because a lot of money is being used to run these ministries.
“We just need to be able to slim down the number of ministers,” he added.
Tafawa-Balewa urged the president to work harder on security to end kidnappings, insurgency and other threats.
“We have to improve our security so that our farmers can go to the farms. We are going to have a burst of food production.
“Without security, we cannot improve our food production right now. We also have technology for the preservation and distribution of food.
“We have written so many times about using the gamma radiation facility to be able to improve our food preservation and distribution but nobody wants to listen.
“We have one of the largest gamma radiation facilities in the world and definitely the largest in Africa.
“We are not using it,” Tafawa-Balewa, a Consultant Nuclear Chemist, specialising in food preservation, said.