Senator-elect Ben Murray Bruce has clarified his recent series of political twitter posts which have generated both public and media interest.
The incoming Bayelsa East Senator explained that his social media agitation was targeted at the Nigerian elite because they (the elite) were selfishly consuming the resources of the country to the detriment of the poor.
Mr. Murray-Bruce, speaking in an interview with Vanguard Newspapers, lamented that it was an absolute shame that a portion of elected officers were monopolizing the resources of the country at the expense of the majority of Nigerians who lived below a dollar a day.
“I am fighting against the elite. Definitely, I am fighting them. When they drink that champagne that can educate a child, they should know that I am fighting them. You don’t fly a first class in government while in your private life, you fly economy. I am totally against their lifestyles,” he said.
He also expressed worry over the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor.
“We need to enact laws that favor the masses. The biggest problem in Nigeria today is that our consumption is on the high while production is low. Our leaders in APC, PDP, Labour, APGA and others are all guilty of one thing, which is consuming the resources of the majority of Nigerians.
”Imagine a situation where governors fly private jets, commissioners’ drive a twenty million naira car. Commissioners flying first class, living like kings while the state cannot pay salary of its workers. If a commissioner can have three or four policemen around him, who is policing the poor where they are being raped, maimed, robbed and killed?
“The question is what do we have for the masses? There are one hundred million people living on two dollars a day, in some places, the unemployment rate is 80 or 90% and then you have governors living a champagne life. Small wonders in some places, thieves steal N50, N200, fishing nets and destroy the lives of the people.”
