Eminent lawyer and politician, Oba Mekunu Owolabi Salis has advocated an urgent need for the Tinubu-led administration to come up with pragmatic measures aimed at mitigating the excruciating hardship which the general mass of the people, especially the poverty-stricken down-trodden are currently passing through.

According to him, “while it is true that the economic hardship today being experienced in the country was largely a carry-over effect of the mis-governance of past leaders,it still behoves on the president to chart a course that would redeem the starving poverty-stricken class from the socio-economic stupor in which they are currently enmeshed.

“Mr. President, it is needless to emphasize an obviously basic fact that you do something urgently to grapple with this task, considering the crucial essence of human life at stake. It is the duty of the government to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor to ensure access to basic needs. This often requires taxing the rich to support the poor in the assurance of these basic needs.The rich do not need the government to provide food or health for them.They have money to buy them.But the poor who are unable to do so,need to be assisted by the government.That is governance.

“As a lawyer and keen student of history and world politics, I will shudder from the predictably usual, even if realistic reference to inevitable bloody revolution, simply because I am an apostle of peace who have no option than to pray for, and support your government, in the interest of peace without which no meaningful success could be achieved.

Rather, my fundamental aim at this juncture is to appeal to your conscience,” Salis remarked in obvious reference to Tinubu.

“As a religious leader, apart from being a politician, I can confirm with every authority at my disposal that there are grave spiritual consequences, anyone I’d allowed to die in intense pains and agony as a result of hunger and starvation and inability to afford or access good health facilities and medication for effective cure of ailments.

“Quote me! whoever subjects a soul to pains and sufferings directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, and the carrier of the soul dies, such a person’s soul may not be reposed. This is in alignment with the spiritual law of justice

“No wonder that George Washington did declare in his first inaugural address on 30th April 1789, that ‘the propitious smiles of “heaven” can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and rights which “heaven” itself has ordained’.

“As it is with nations, so it is with us as individuals,” said the Ikorodu-born Lagosian who in 2019 contested for governorship on the platform of Alliance For Democracy.

He stated further: “The right to life and well-being is a cardinal right of every human being. To therefore deny them of life,in whatever guise, whether consciously or otherwise, through lack of food and inability to afford basic medication, especially at critical times of need is to say the least, highly unfair.

“Therefore, a system in which the poor are denied food and good health will be relegating them to the level of a sub-human beast.This indeed will be the height of man’s inhumanity to man.

“It is an interestingly curious coincidence to know that both capitalism and socialism converge at a common point of understanding on this basic point despite their opposingly extreme placing on the ideological divide. We could see how both protect the interest of the economically weak and helpless poor, by cushioning them from the unpleasant ravaged of the market forces.

“That is governance with human face, and this exactly is what we call upon our esteemed leader to observe to the hilt,and not just by sheer cosmetic measure.

“In other words, not only should this be done, but effectively be seen to be done quite unlike ugly scenarios of the past, in which money meant for the poor in strategic custody of the Ministry of humanitarian affairs eventually found their level as water essentially does, in private pockets of the very custodian to which they are entrusted.

“Basic needs that can inflict pains and sufferings are different in many countries, but in Nigeria, they are food and health. In cold countries, for example, you add shelter. Tinubu and the Governors need to bridge the gap in food and health. Every Nigerian should have access to food and health. Today, lots of poor people are dying of hunger and lack of money to buy medical drugs to attend to ailments. I emphasize again that as a religious leader and a politician, I can confirm that there are spiritual consequences if anyone allows innocent people to die of pain and suffering. Lack of food and medications can inflict on the people pains and sufferings.

“Quote me again: “Whoever subjects an innocent soul to pains and sufferings and the carrier of the soul dies, such a person soul may not be reposed.

“At this stage,we should be compassionate enough as to be touched by lamentable scenarios in which innocent children are starving, and children of the poor dropping out of school for inability to eat even a square meal a day,let alone afford payment of school fees? Human beings resorting to animal feeds for survival, and ladies desperate for marriage as a way out of economic hardship, ending up being strangled and sacrificed by their boyfriends for money rituals.

“Ironicaly the rich elites and their parleys in government wallow in comfort while their children are far away in luxury abroad, attending the most expensive schools there.Yet, these are the very cause of the problems for which the innocent masses are being called to sacrifice,and for which they progressively die daily by instalment.Are we not touched at the grave spiritual implications?” asked the celebrated tourist and globe-trotter who recently arrived on pilgrimage to the North Pole, after a recent tour to the South Pole, making him the first Black African to have successfully undertaken the heroic feat.

Narrating further the unending tale of woes, he lamented that “The suffering poor have now resorted to trekking just because they can no longer cope with the abominable hike in fuel cost, which eventually boils down to the ugly scenario in which a good number of people find it difficult to even get to their various places of work, from where they earn their source of living because they found it extremely difficult to afford the huge transportation cost.

“Should we therefore be surprised in view of the fore-going,at the soaring rate of crimes, like kidnapping, terrorism, armed robbery, prostitution among sundry vices that had contributed in exacerbating the tensely security situation in the country?

“You may therefore agree with me dear Mr. President, that the suffering poor have had more than enough,and if nothing is done not only fastly but immediately to unburden the huge yoke they currently contend with,then I shudder to contemplate the consequences,” he warned.