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The worst is over, Nigeria on the match to greatness – Tinubu
“There are a number of things that are going on now that create direct employment and set us up for a prosperous future where our infrastructure actually supports the foreign direct investment drive that this President is aggressively pursuing,” the Presidency, said on Sunday, to buoy the confidence of Nigerians in the government of President Bola Tinubu.
Ajuri Ngelale, presidential spokesman, who was a guest of Politics on Sunday, a programme on TVC, while assuring Nigerians of the determination and commitment of his boss to putting the country on a sound economic footing, despite the challenges inherited by his administration, stressed that all the people needed to do on their part, was to be patient and support the President.
It was also a day Ngelale, Special Adviser to the president on media and publicity, clarified Tinubu’s position on the 10-day nationwide protest being planned by some interest groups in Nigeria to commence on August 1, saying Tinubu, a veteran of protests was not against the action, but only maintained the position that it must not be accompanied by violence.
Listing a coterie of achievements, the President had made in the last one year to pull Nigeria out of the woods, he said: “When the President sets out to build… right now you have over 300 roadways across all states of the federation being reconstructed and that is not including the super-highway from Lagos to Calabar that’s under construction, the Badagry to Sokoto highway and many others. Not to talk of $1 billion being right now expended on seaport reconstruction across the eastern and western seaports.
“But it is also incumbent upon our administration, not just at the federal level, but obviously incumbent on the state and local levels, to ensure that whatever policies are being implemented to create fiscal space for households, that these things are actually done, that we don’t have any kind of administrative incompetence, that we don’t have unnecessary bureaucratic delays.
“The last point I would make on this is that when you look at the government right now we’ve rolled out the National Student Loan programme, where you have over 100,000 beneficiaries, students who originally would not have been able to access institutions of higher learning, but are now able to do so, not just accessing the tuition, but accessing the logistics, accommodation, upkeep and all of that.
“If you look at the Consumer Credit Programme, if you’re looking at a scale of over one million Nigerians in the first year that would benefit from that programme, these are things that take time ultimately to … There’s no question about the fact that there is a lot of work that has to be done and there’s a lot of work that is being done, some of which is not going to have the bells and whistles of TV cameras and nobody’s going to be sitting in the office, for example of the CBN Governor, as he’s doing his paperwork which leads to the full payoff of $7 billion worth of foreign exchange backlog.
“It has a massive impact on investor confidence, it has a massive impact on the medium-term kind of monetary space in the country, but that’s not something that people are necessarily going to be dancing and celebrating about. So, there’s a lot going on.
“I think the key thing for us is to recognise that the President has agreed that we are going to ensure that our states, and now by virtue of the President’s action with the institution of the suit that ultimately resulted in a Supreme Court judgment that has led to a local government financial autonomy, is going to ensure that the local governments now have the fiscal space they need to be able to truly deliver the dividends of democracy that our people require at that level.
“I think that is restructuring in practice. That is the kind of thing that Nigerians would need to give some time to see what the difference actually will translate into in terms of the impact on their livelihoods. I think the other part of this is to recognise that it is under the leadership of this President, that we have had a 100 per cent increase in the national minimum wage and I think it will be difficult for everybody in the country to fully appreciate what it took in terms of the leadership of the President to get the private sector to agree in uniformity, with state governments and local governments making sure that everybody’s on the same page with respect to the payment of a new national minimum wage, it’s not easy to achieve that, he achieved it”.
“I think there are a lot of elements of what the President has done, that Nigerians truly do appreciate and truly do recognise as progressive. These are things that we’ve been in this democratic dispensation now for about 25 years, we have not seen some of the measures that this President has now put in place ever being put in place before.
“I think people have confidence, but I think it’s also fair to say that people are frustrated, people do feel they are buckling under this intense economic difficulty with respect to energy prices, food inflation, and many of the other elements but what we are working hard in hand in hand with our people to communicate is that the trends are moving in the right direction.
“We are seeing revenues going up, we are seeing inflation growth stagnate into a descent. So, we have come through the worst of it and this is what we’re communicating to our people and we will together with them get to the end of where the light is at the end of the tunnel.”
Seriake Dickson, National Leader of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), on Wednesday showcased Peter Obi, its presidential candidate in the 2027 election, but gave a proviso – his importance would not be at the expense of the party.
A guest on Prime Time, a public affairs programme on ARISE NEWS Television, the former Governor of Bayelsa State, now Senator representing West at the National Assembly, maintained that the belief in some quarters that Obi’s entrance into the party was a favour was completely misplaced.
Instead, he argued that the opposite was the case, as it was the party that was doing its candidates a favour by giving them the opportunity to contest elective positions on its platform in the 2027 elections, a gesture that ought to be returned.
Hear him: “Don’t make it look like anyone is doing NDC a favour. No one is. Rather, the NDC and I and my colleagues are doing people a favour by granting our platform. If you are genuinely supporting Peter Obi and you are disparaging me, the leader, or the platform itself. That is nonsensical.”
Stressing that NDC had demonstrated confidence in Obi by adopting Obi as its sole presidential candidate and selecting a vice-presidential candidate without internal disputes, he said it was enough to earn its leadership the gratitude it deserved.
He added: “Nobody paid shishi. So, if a presidential candidate didn’t pay shishi to be made the sole presidential candidate and sole vice-presidential candidate, that same party cannot be the one saying that small people are underprivileged.
“I could have run. There’s no one more qualified than me. There’s no one more qualified than me to run for presidential candidate. None. There is no crisis within the NDC. Peter Obi is a cherished member of our party. On our own, we have made him a presidential candidate. Sole presidential candidate. And that counts for something. We are working well together. There’s no crisis.”
Invoking its zero tolerance on issues of security breaches, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), has clamped down on aircraft and crew of the privately operated jet that landed on a roadway in the Ogwashi-Uku area near Asaba, Delta state.
Even with regulatory body for airline operations in Nigeria informed that no casualties were recorded in the incident, it still went for its sanctions in line with its sworn position of maintaining maximum safety at every point.
In a statement on Wednesday, Michael Achimugu, its spokesman said preliminary reports indicated that the aircraft conducted a missed approach while attempting to land at Asaba airport at about 7:43am.
Achimugu: Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, said: “Reports received from personnel at the scene indicate that all occupants safely exited the aircraft and were transported to Asaba by road,” Achimugu said. The aircraft had four (4) crew members on board. At this time, no injuries to passengers or crew have been reported.
“Preliminary information available to the authority indicated that the aircraft later departed the location and returned to Lagos without obtaining the required regulatory approval. Air traffic control was informed only after the aircraft had become airborne.”
Stressing that the action constitutes a violation of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations (Nig.CARs) and is currently under investigation by the authority, he said the NCAA immediately grounded the aircraft upon its arrival in Lagos pending the outcome of investigations.
He added: “The flight crew have been placed under regulatory review while the NCAA conducts further inquiries into the circumstances surrounding the occurrence and the subsequent unauthorised departure of the aircraft.
“The NCAA has formally notified the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) of the occurrence and is coordinating with relevant aviation stakeholders, including the operator and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency to establish the full circumstances surrounding the incident.”
Stating that the NCAA immediately suspended the operator’s permit for non-commercial flight (PNCF), he added that the authority would review all operational, airworthiness, maintenance and flight-related records as part of its statutory responsibilities and take further enforcement action in accordance with applicable aviation regulations.
Achimugu said the NCAA remains committed to maintaining the highest standards of aviation safety, security, and regulatory compliance within the Nigerian aviation sector.
Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), on Wednesday, swore to the integrity of the process that led to his picking the party’s ticket, saying it remained untainted and consistent with the wills of the members.
Against the backdrop of the insistence of Babachir Lawal, former Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), that he stole the ticket by corrupting the process, Atiku, Vice President between 1999 and 2007, pooh-poohed the claim.
Before the former SGF Rotimi Amaechi, former Governor of Rivers State and Minister of Transportation as well as Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, former Chairman of Nigeria Economic Summit Group, both candidates in the contest for the ADC ticket, had rejected the process as flawed, even before the outcome.
Lawal, who had earlier announced his resignation from the ADC a fortnight ago and made sundry allegations of gaming the system against Atiku, had doubled down on Monday, while appearing on Politics Today, a public affairs programme on Channels Television, claiming he personally monitored the exercise and had evidence that the primary was rigged.
Hear him: “Don’t forget I was the National Vice Chairman (North-East). I was in the field during the exercise, so I have evidence. Atiku’s people are the ones trying to deny what they did. We are all human beings. We know what they did. I knew the primary was rigged at the point it was being done and the results declared.”
Regardless that neither Amaechi nor Hayatu-Deen had recanted their original position Atiku, insisted that nothing was amiss, adding that his opponents actually won in the areas of their individual popularity and stronghold.
Conveying his position through Phrank Shaibu, his spokesman, who appeared as a guest on Politics Today, a public affairs programme on Channels Television, the former VP said: “Anybody who claims rigging or irregularity in the last election should check the places and locations they won. Where are the states that Rotimi Amaechi won? If you check the figures and the margins he got there, you will know that those are his strongholds. It was not a fraudulent process.
Maintaining that the burden of proving any fraud rested on the former SGF Shaibu, Shaibu depicted his boss as the most popular among the contestants, arguing that the outcome of the event should not be surprising to anybody.
He said of the ex-SGF: “Babachir reminds me of a baby who is yanked off her mother’s breast while suckling. It is like a deprived suckling; definitely the baby will throw tantrums. He admitted on your show that his preferred candidate was Hayatu-Deen. He worked for him.”
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