The Mayor of Urhoboland, Eshanakpe Israel a.k.a Akpodoro has expressed hope in the current administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He described the administration as a government on a misssion to reform Nigeria. The former ex-militant leader and patron to the Maritime Security Agency, MASECA, says the President is piloting the nation to safety.
His ascension to the Nigeria’s seat of power was not a bread and butter race. It wasn’t a 100 metres race either but a marathon, life long race which began in 1993 when he emerged Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu was that man who stood firmly for the most populous black nation to be democratised, a struggle in which he saw hope when many saw a gloomy future under the military interregnum. He fought like a wounded lion at the heels of the annulment of June 12, 1993 presidential election, an election won by the late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola.
While he was in the Senate, the then legislator, Tinubu, exuded uniqueness holding tenaciously to democratic norms and values and stuck out his neck for democracy at the annulment of the Nigeria’s acclaimed fairest and most acceptable election in Nigeria.
When the winner of the election was incarcerated, the today’s Nigeria’s president pivoted the National Democratic Coalition, NADECO, an organisation that eased the military out of power for democracy to birth in Nigeria.
While he held sway using the NADECO as a launching pad against the military, most of his contemporaries chose to wine and dine with the military and the rest they say is history.
A progressive to the core, the top-notch accountant with the Mobil Oil and former Lagos state governor sacrificed all his life to patriotism and national solidarity, seeking a more workable Nigeria where equality, social justice, good governance and a prosperous Nigeria stands firmly on democracy.
We saw the stiff opposition, conspiracies of party men and women against him, the gang up to his emergence right from his political party that he midwifed, the All Progressives Congress, APC. Incidentally, the apostle of the popular Renewed Hope defeated and broke the barriers of impossibilities to become the not only the flag bearer of his party but defeated every impediment to his ambition of becoming Nigeria’s president.
In his victory on February 25, 2023, Nigerians witnessed a new political dynamics, President Tinubu’s victory dwarfed book makers, proved political pundits wrong while his traduccers fled in different directions.
From the point of his swearing in as the President, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria, the political wizard took a giant stride by removing the vexatious oil subsidy, a scam that had fed oil cartels fat over the years. It was a feat achieved by dint of determination and long time ambition to set the nation on a path of meaningful growth and development.
He succeeded where his predecessors failed. The economy immediately embraced the realities of global economies. The country’s economic indices took the colours of reality as against past artificial economic growth that wasn’t sustainable.
Before on board, the Central Bank of Nigeria was funding dollar’s stability sending non feasible signals on the true economic situation in the giant of Africa.
President Asiwaju didn’t stop at that, he floated the Naira leaving it to the whims of market forces in a laid fare manner. Today, any economic growth achieved is sustainable.
Who says this administration has nothing to celebrate within one year of President Tinubu’s administration? For those of us – well-meaning Nigerians, there are million of reasons the Renewed Hope administration must be celebrated. The second giant strides of the Tinubu’s administration in the education sector that he has opened up for access by all.
The Student Loan scheme is a novel idea that people thought was not possible but the Tinubu’s reformative presidency has simplified by expunging all the grey areas and setting it on course.
As the Mayor of Urhoboland who is also the Patron of the Maritime Security Agency, MASECA, I know the role the Tinubu’s administration has played in taming criminal elements in the Nigerian waterways. With the prompt payment of stakeholders like Tantita Security Services Nig Ltd for the security and protection of national assets, it is the reason Nigeria has stopped bleeding from the Niger Delta.
The decimation of bloody attacks by the insurgents in the North East, banditry in the North West and other areas in the country this administration has been able to firmly hold the nation together in unity by ending sectional agitations. The President smartly quashed ethnic agitations through open governance with a national outlook in his appointments of persons into the federal executive council.
This administration has been able to exterminate the hydra-headed monster of incessant industrial actions in the country’s educational system. For his one year in the office the President had ensured zero tolerance for strike in that sector, denoting the zeal to build a functional educational system.
The APC administration so far has shown great concern in removing the nation from the woods and also break the norm in operating the machinery of state.
The Lagos-Calabar super coastal highway is another feather to the Tinubu administration. A major approach to open the socio-economic landscape of the nation for aggressive development from the Niger Delta corridor. It takes a visionary leader to mull these ideas and go for them head-on. It’s a great achievement ditto the Sokoto Badagry superhighway that the contract is about to be awarded. The nation has a lot to celebrate under this government.
Same government in the same time under review has also awarded several contracts to build infrastructure particularly roads in the hinterland, electricity supply has increased tremendously in the country while the health sector is also receiving reformative touch of the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr President.
President Asiwaju has tightened the noose against backwardness, setting the agenda for a more prosperous, secured, stronger and more reliable nation. In a reformative socio-economic system the citizens must lend their support to the operators of the political system for it to achieve its goal, and this is what the Tinubu administration needs.
The president has shown capacity, honesty, resilience, patriotism and statesmanship in steering the ship of the state and this why we clamour for him to finish strongly as he drives the statecraft to safety.
With President Tinubu in the saddle, in another three years, there’s hope that the citizens will crave more years of his administration.
For this one year, it was a huge success, commendable with excellent achievements that cannot be reeled out in one fell swoop. In humanitarian front, the President demonstrated capacity to exit Nigerians from the woods of poverty. From the mangrove of the Delta region, we congratulate the President, his cabinet members and the good people of Nigeria. That decision made on February 25, 2023 was the best a nation could make.
●Eshanakpe Israel a.k.a Akpodoro, the Mayor of Urhoboland, writes from Ughelli, Delta State, South-South Nigeria
