Two Years Governance: APC Counts Its Blessings, Through Tinubu’s Administarion

By Tom Okpe

The All Progressives Congress, APC, has said the Party, led by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administarion is a blessing to the country and its citizens, by the courageous removal of fuel subsidy, despite knowing that it will bite hard on the people at its early stage.

He also said it was wrong for people to begin to tackle the Government, understanding that it has been doing everything, neccessary to fix the numerous problems it inherited from past administrations.

National Publicity Secretary, of the Party, Felix Morka, made this known on Thursday at the Paryy National Secretariat, Buhari Jouse, Abuja, while briefing the media to mark the second anniversary of the administration of President Tinubu.

He said previous Presidents were not bold enough to remove the subsidy, saying it could only be done by a vicious leader like Tinubu, ŵith clear agenda to reshape the National economy for the interest of all Nigerians.

He said: “As I earlier said, all the Presidents who came before this President, preferred postponing the doomsday, but, in two years of this administration, we made clear that this President has enacted a vision and proclaimed a mission to tackle problems that were created generationally in our country. All of the difficulties we speak about today didn’t drop from the sky. They were long in coming.

“So, other Presidents were in fact, taking out subsidy, gradually. But let me tell you the difference between this President and the rest of them; other Presidents who intervened in the fuel subsidy regime did so to save a bit of money and to free up some money to get their job done.

“When you have between your debt servicing commitments and fuel subsidy and you are spending over 95-98% of all revenues in the country, as a President, you see money coming in, but you can’t touch it because it’s already pre-committed to existing obligations. What does that mean? It means you had to govern with nothing, which is why we saw a lot of borrowing.”

Morka further stressed that raging problems in the country was not created by the administration because there were a lot of economic commitments that the country was bound to attend to.

“It wasn’t coming from our Government because, this administration was already completely mortgaged to these serious National economic commitments. The debt servicing and the subsidy regime. Now, how can anyone, any country, survive on that money? It was completely unsustainable.”

The Party spokesman further assured that things are beginning to change for the better, noting that, “in the next few years, Nigerians wil begin to feel the positive impact of the policies of the Tinubu administration.”

Stating further, Morka emphasized that: “This Government is freeing up gradually, freeing up that flexibility for Nigeria, and creating incentives for people to go back to land. How many Nigerians are really preparing their children to take the land, whether on a subsistence level or on a mechanized level,” he queried.

He disagreed with those who are taking the recent endorsement of President Tinubu for a second term as campaigns, adding that there are a great difference between meeting to pass a vote of confidence on someone and campaigning.

“We are not campaigning, nobody is campaigning. Endorsement is not campaigning. A vote of confidence is something that is routine in any organization, people wake up in the morning and even when they decide to pass a vote of confidence on someone or on an institution, that is not campaigning.

“I think we are confusing or conflicting the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC timelines for certain actions with the freedom and democratic liberty of people, citizens, politicians to express themselves. Those expressions may come politically, they come even in partisan notes, but that does not mean, anyone is campaigning,” he stressed.

On insecurity in the country, the Party also, commended the administration, over security situation in parts of the country, insisting that the era of heightened state of insecurity is over.

“Those who are determined to do evil, will do, irrespective of whatever sensitization, you can not stop them because they do not mean well for their fe..ow human beings and the Nation. Part of what drives them is to create that havoc and kill people, make people, disturb the peace.

“I think we should be fair in how we frame this conversation about insecurity. Because when we speak, oh, insecurity is on the rise, you know, we have seen a lot of insecurity in certain parts of the country. That may be true, but it is also true that the Government and its security forces are not sleeping.

“That is what appeals to their very darkest minds. And we cannot celebrate them as a people. Because, you know, as the National Security Advisor presented it at the National Summit, about 13,543 terrorists have been neutralized in the last few years.

“Think about it. 13,000 human beings, neutralized. Who are these people who are willing to be killed because they are looking to kill innocent people? What drives them? We must get into their own psychology to understand where they’re coming from,” he said.

Morka also defended the administration of the immediate past President Muhammad Buhari, describing it as a stop gap leader who also did well, given the circumstances of the country at the time he took over.

“You cannot talk about Buhari without talking about the circumstances that he stepped into and had to manage. I am saying this, not on behalf of the Party.

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“In my personal understanding, Buhari was a stop gap President. He came in to simply hold a country that was already flipping off the key, flipping off the precipice.

“The country was of the fallacies of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the economy did better under their watch, the economy we ran was a phantom economy. An economy where contracts were awarded, security votes were given.

“We saw what happened when Buhari took over, concerning Dasuki’s Natiinal Security Adbiser, NSA, where billions of dollars meant to fight the world terror were simply shared to everybody, today who had the courage, opening their mouth to speak in the PDP. It was simply a question to them. What happened to all the money voted for the power, the whole power sector reform.

“The Lagos-Maiduguri Expressway was awarded multiple times, but never done. Second Niger Bridge, awarded multiple times, never done. Where do you think all that money went? The money went into building estates and paying architects to design estates for private individuals. Money that was meant to procure and produce common good were diverted.

“Buhari simply came to plug the hemorrhage, like an emergency treatment. When you rush a patient in, the nurses are not interested in long-term issues, they want to just stop that bleeding, let the blood clot, let that man get the oxygen, let him do that. That was Buhari’s mission,” he added.