‘Tinubu a Beacon of Light and Hope for Nigerians’
Gbenga Sodeinde in Ado Ekiti
The presidential candidate of All Progressive Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is a beacon of light and hope for Nigerians, Co-ordinator of Tinubu/Shettima Independent Campaign Council, Prince Akintade Olayisade, has said.
Making the declaration in an interview, Olayisade, a former SUBEB chairman in Ekiti State, said Tinubu had been tested and proven, having done it in Lagos state when he came as a governor in 1999.
Olayisade said:” He met a mess that was called Lagos, he met a state that was nothing to write home about and from there, he turned the state around and today, Lagos has become the 5th largest economy in Africa and it’s still growing.”
“When he came on board in 1999 , he gathered 16 people who are called G-16 that sat down and mapped out a strategy and they made a blueprint of 25 years development plan for Lagos state. It’s on how Lagos state will look like in 25 years to come and they are running it every four years. I’m glad to tell you that the indigene of Ekiti state, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele is one of those people and that was the blueprint that is being followed by successive governors.”
Olayisade pointed out that it was Tinubu that encouraged and provided the enabling environment for Dangote to establish in Lagos State, Refinery and Imota Rice Mill which is the largest in Africa and the third largest in the world.
“Nigeria is in crisis now and we need a leader who has been tested and proven, if we have to talk about Musa Kwakwanso, he tried a bit in Kano state but Nigeria is a complex society whereby at this time you cannot trust Nigeria in the hand of somebody who will be trial by error and you know Tinubu has prepared in his entirety for better Nigeria.
“Asiwaju has not been in government, there is a difference between government and party but there is no way we can run away from the fact that we are in crisis in Nigeria because the crisis in Nigeria does not know any party, we are suffering from it altogether.
“ Asiwaju helped in installing Buhari , he worked assiduously in installing Buhari but he has never participated in any way in governance as far as APC is concerned, he was in government last in 2007. So, Nigerians are wiser now that they cannot visit the sins of the government on APC because the agenda that they are pursuing now is not that of APC, it’s more or less of personal agenda.
“It is not in APC manifesto that there should be a crisis of petrol or that Naira must be changed. In economics, to change currencies at intervals is not wrong but why at this time, if it has been done more than two years ago people must have gotten used to it and things will be going well,” he said
On the activities of his council, Olayisade said: “Well, we have been going around not only us, nationwide we have our platform where we communicate, but we also have the template that we are following and we have been educating people and to my surprise, some people understand more than what we even think. They know that Tinubu is not the president, they know that he has been sidelined long time ago in the affairs of the party. He has not in any way contributed to the ways that they followed, they know that and they are waiting for his emergence to be able to turn things around.”
