Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC in Delta State, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh has described the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the last 100 days as impactful to Nigerians.
Cairo, a former Member of the House of Representatives highlighted some achievements of President Tinubu. Ojougboh who is also the Director General, “Coalition for Peace and Unity” narrated his efforts to ensure that President Tinubu got over 90 thousand votes in his State despite APC’s internal crisis and factionalisation , overwhelming influence of the states ruling People’s Democratic Party,PDP and the Labour Party.
The former Lawmaker revealed this while featuring as guest on the ‘The Morning Show’ of the Arise Television, anchored by Dr. Reuben Abati and co and monitored by the Sun on Thursday.
Decisions such as the removal of fuel subsidy, unification of the exchange rate & reorganisation of the security architecture were mentioned by Cairo as part of the President’s gains in his 100 days in office.
Also lauded by Cairo is Tinubu’s Ministerial Team which he described as competent to tackle the Nation’s challenges also listing the President’s efforts in Agriculture, Education and youth reorientation to eschew cyber crimes particularly those in the South region.
Tinubu’s ability to defend his victory at the Presidential Electoral Petition Tribunal was also pointed out as a major achievement according to Cairo. While congratulating Tinubu, Cairo said that the verdict which validated Tinubu’s Electoral victory was generally accepted by Nigerians stressing that the concurrence of the entire five Judges in the case is historical as the Nation had never witnessed such.
Cairo urged Nigerians to be patient with the present Government;
“To me for being able to defend his election he has done very well , you will all agree that it was a huge success. “In his administration he has been able to put together a team to administer and run the executive and he is a listening President, he has been able to tinker it and he continues to build on it.
He spoke on;
“He has been able to restructure the security architecture and it takes time to get results and he has moved in such a way that the result is coming as at when due. On foreign exchange, he has been able to work on the Central Bank of Nigeria to try and restructure the issues there to stop the double and multiple exchange rate system and that is bringing a consequence which is the continued depreciation of the Naira and that is expected.
“However, that does not mean that the hardship we are facing today is going to be forever. One major factor that causes 20-30 % of the issue of depreciation is the pressure of the importation of PMS and other Petroleum products which brings to the value of the Naira.
While calling for an end to the importation Cairo disclosed that unless Crude Oil is processed locally there won’t be an end to the depreciation of the Naira.
Cairo recalled his efforts to address the issue during his era as Chairman of the House Committee on Petroleum Resources; “My committee sat down and reviewed the Petroleum act and we came up with the issue and as at then we gave the Petroleum industry about 50 years. Today at best the Petroleum industry will run for the next 30 years.
“I watched a report on how to import crude from Nigeria , refine it and sell it back to Nigeria. I almost wept and this is what we said from 2003 to 2007. We must refine our own Petroleum products.
“We must tackle it seriously as a matter of fact it is very important. The Petroleum industry is a very difficult industry. As the House Committee Chairman for Petroleum we raised a lot of issues. People came to meet me and told me that the industry is shallow. We passed the PIB act but the Senate didn’t concur with it that year so they moved it. The situation we are having today would have been long addressed if they took our advice. The President is a listening President and I am sure he is working hard to address the issues in the Petroleum industry.
Cairo further made entreaties to the APC’S National leadership to urgently intervene over the factionalisation of the party in the Delta State. He maintained that the intervention has become necessary in order to rebuild the party solidly to enable it to perform well in future elections.
He divulged that the Delta APC party were divided into two factions while the one belonged to are entrenched in the grassroots the other were led by those he labeled as the bourgeoisie adding that both groups were in court to determine the legitimate leadership.
He said;
“In the last 4 years, APC was not on ground, it was flying in the air. It refused to perch or to land to prosecute elections. “We were not given that opportunity. The only thing we were allowed to do was to make sure that we defended the presidential election, otherwise, the result we got could have been worse.
“We ensured that the APC would not be disenchanted because the people in APC were only interested in their own personal result. “But we the grassroot of the APC said No, that we would work for Mr. President and we did our best and the 90,000 votes we got for Mr. President, I tell you If not for our efforts at the risk of our lives maybe we couldn’t have gotten about 5,000 or 6,000 votes for Mr. President.
Asked about the rift between his faction and that of the former Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, Ojougboh dispelled any misunderstanding between himself and Agege.
“The court has awarded me 5 million against the other faction and has barred them from harassing me further, because I am a soldier of truth, ” Cairo stated.
When asked to assess the performance of Governor Sheriff Oborevwori’s government, the APC chieftain noted that as an elder statesman it will be too early to rate the Sheriff.
“So far, so good, I believe the man right there (Government House Asaba) I don’t think I have ever met him in my life. Well, from what I read he is trying to find his feet and is too early to say anything, I am still watching”, he said.
