Tinubu’s accent when he speaks is fake, assumed for sophistication sake, says Shaibu
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s seeming foreign accent whenever he speaks English has been described as feigned, merely intended to remind the people that he once lived in America.
A Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Phrank Shaibu accused Tinubu of faking a foreign accent and questioned the value of the president’s speech and presentation style amid Nigeria’s economic hardship.
Shaibu who made the remarks on Monday during an interview on Frontline, A current affairs programme on Eagle 102.5 FM, Ilese Ijebu asked:
“Have you taken your time to listen to Tinubu on television or radio before?”
Continuing, he said: “Listen to him. This is a man who fakes his accent because he wants to stamp the fact and remind Nigerians that he once lived in America.”
Shaibu then dismissed the importance of the president’s accent in determining his capacity to govern. He continued by criticising what he described as the president’s struggle with English despite the accent he claimed Tinubu adopted.
“Accents don’t put money in our pockets neither does it mean capacity in our brain,” he said.
“You cannot use accent, use an American accent or the British accent without speaking good English,” Shaibu added.
The SSA to the former vice president argued that Nigerians should judge the administration by the material conditions in which citizens were living.
He said the removal of subsidy had increased the cost of petrol and, by extension, transportation, food, education and healthcare.
According to him, government claims of increased revenue did not mean Nigerians were better off. Shaibu said that even if government had increased its revenues, the purchasing power of ordinary Nigerians had declined sharply.
He described the argument that increased government revenue automatically represented economic success as “maths of wretched illiteracy.”
“Anybody could contemplate that and say it is economics but It’s not economics,” he said.
The Atiku aide further attacked Tinubu’s argument that Nigerians had suffered hunger even before his administration. He referred to a statement attributed to the president that Nigerians had been hungry before he was born.
“This is a man who went on national television and said that before he was born, Nigerians have been hungry,” Shaibu said.
“Hunger did not start with him. Look at that audacity,” he added.
Shaibu described the statement as “reckless audacity” from a president presiding over a country with a large population of Educated Professionals.
