Kosoko, in remarks that have since gone viral, said, “Tolerance is important. Nigerian youths should stop misbehaving because of bad governance. Stop showing anger because you are hungry.”
The 72-year-old actor made the remarks during an interview on Talk To B, a podcast hosted by his colleague, actress Biola Adebayo, published on YouTube on Friday night. The interview quickly attracted widespread attention after clips were shared across X, formerly Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, drawing hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of comments within hours of publication.
Kosoko challenged Nigerians complaining about hunger under President Bola Tinubu’s administration, asking what they were eating before the president assumed office.
He also urged Nigerians to allow Tinubu to complete his tenure, insisting that the president was doing well despite widespread criticism of his government’s economic management. Tinubu assumed office in May 2023 and almost immediately removed the fuel subsidy, a policy that triggered sharp increases in the cost of petrol and accelerated a broader rise in the prices of food and transportation across the country.
“Things aren’t as bad as people make it to seem. I am hungry; check most of those people. Before Tinubu came, what were they eating? Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying things are rosy; there are too many issues at hand that Bola Ahmed Tinubu is now fixing,” Kosoko said.
He argued that successive administrations had failed to prepare adequately for the country’s population growth, leaving the current government to deal with the consequences.
“The free money being used to satisfy you and me needs to be taken back for us to face reality. The reality is that we are not buoyant enough to start enjoying what we are enjoying. We still have quite a few other things to do,” he said.
When the podcast host pressed him to name concrete evidence that an ordinary Nigerian could point to, Kosoko cited the student loan scheme, noting it as one of several initiatives he believed the administration had put in place. The student loan program, administered through the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, was signed into law by Tinubu in June 2023 and is intended to provide interest-free loans to students in public tertiary institutions who cannot afford tuition fees.
He further urged beneficiaries of the president’s initiatives, particularly those involving students, to speak publicly about the impact of such programs and claimed that some of Tinubu’s critics understand the direction of his administration but allow their political ambitions to influence their opinions.
Social media buzzed following the remarks, with citizens and social media users recalling his past participation in protests against former President Goodluck Jonathan’s fuel subsidy removal. Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics reported in early 2024 that the country’s inflation rate had climbed to its highest level in nearly three decades, a figure critics frequently cited in their responses to Kosoko’s comments.
One social media user wrote, “You were at the protest ground of subsidy removal during Jonathan, but you are here supporting Tinubu even when things have gone so bad.”
Kosoko has been a supporter of Tinubu since before the 2023 presidential election, joining other Yoruba film stars, including Adebayo Salami, Yinka Quadri, Femi Adebayo, and Faithia Williams, in endorsing Tinubu when he was still the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate.
Kosoko later told Saturday Beats that his support was informed by his relationship with Tinubu and his wife, Oluremi, as well as the former Lagos State governor’s contributions to the film industry. Kosoko, who has featured in hundreds of Yoruba-language films over a career spanning more than five decades, is among the most recognizable figures in Nollywood and has previously served as a patron of several arts and culture bodies in Lagos State.
The backlash against Kosoko’s comments centers on the contrast between his call for youth tolerance now and his publicly documented activism against fuel subsidy policy under a previous administration, with Nigerians directly invoking that history to challenge the consistency of his position on Jide Kosoko and hunger under Tinubu’s government.
