A presidential spokesman Femi Adesina has said the message of the young boy which was asking his mother to ‘calm down’ as she was set to punish him for a misdemeanour, is meant for the entire country.
The viral video showed how a little boy skillfully delayed spanking from his mother by appealing to his mother’s emotion and repeatedly telling his mother to “calm down” had earlier caught the fancy of Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. In his Sallah message, Sanwo-Olu appealed to Lagosians to calm down in the manner of the boy in that viral video said.
But Adesina holds that Nigerians should calm down, stating that Nigerians “are too uptight, nervy, edgy.”
Adesina said if the opinions of “angry youths, religious leaders, political analysts, newspaper columnists, news reviewers, so-called activists” are all that is happening in the country, “then nothing positive is happening in the country.”
“It is all about insurgency, banditry, killings, joblessness, corruption, lack and deprivation. True? False!,” he added.
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari had since his first term in office pledged to focus on fighting corruption, national security and diversifying the economy but critics and political analyst opined that no significant achievement have been made.
Nigeria’s economy still languishes and has recently became worse due to the coronavirus pandemic as it has crashed global oil price and has in-turn crippled Nigeria’s economy which accounts for over half of government revenues.
As at 2019, unemployment has nearly trebled to over 23 per cent under Buhari and another fifth of Nigerians are underemployed. The stock market has been among the world’s worst performing and the country has become home to 87m people living in extreme poverty.
“We would never enjoy the rainfall if we expect rainstorm to carry away our rooftop at any moment. Calm down. “I’m just telling you to be ‘calming’ down,” Adesina said.
