President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio has urged Nigerians to be patient with President Bola Tinubu as he labours to fix what he described as “a foamy economy” left wobbling by the embattled former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Godwin Emefiele, whom he alleged, had left a very big hole in the national treasury.
Akpabio maintained that Tinubu inherited a battered economy which he is currently trying to rally cash and deploying his ingenious know-how to salvage and navigate away from the stranglehold of sleaze and corruption to stay afloat.
The Senate President made the plea at Ikot Ekpene Stadium over the weekend when his kinsmen from Akwa Ibom North-West Senatorial District hosted him and his National Assembly colleagues in a reception since he became the president of the Senate last year.
He recalled that his earlier remarks on Emefiele being the major culprit responsible for failure of the economy, had drawn the ire of the ex – CBN boss, who took him (Akpabio) to Court, but maintained that; “I still stand by my position,” despite the Court case.
Expressing optimism and confidence in the economy bouncing back stronger, Akpabio assured that President Tinubu has the magic wand to retool the economy back on the trajectory of growth as he did as Governor under which Lagos became one of the most buoyant economies in Africa.
He stressed that with three former governors, Tinubu, a former Governor of Lagos State, as President; Kashim Shettima, former Borno State Governor as Vice President, and himself, former Akwa Ibom State governor, their knowledge and ingenuity in politics and socio -economic governance would be aggregated and galvanized to rescue the country for the greater good of Nigerians.
Akpabio assured the people of the State, the South -South region and the country of all-round federal presence, assuring that the coastal road coming all the way from Lagos to Calabar would cut across various states in the Southwest, Southeast and the South-South political zones, with attendant socio-economic developments.
The Senate President also assured the host governor, Pastor Umo Eno of the Deep Seaport, and other federal government projects, and urged him to liaise with the Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Chief Samuel Ogbuku, to extend the ongoing road project from the neighbouring Abia State to Ini, Ikono, Ikot Ekpene to connect Uyo, the state capital.
“You have asked of Seaport, you will not only get Seaport, you get roads, flyovers, and other federal projects, and we are going to do this because of you,” he stressed, but impressed it on the governor to live above board as a Pastor, to which the governor agreed.
However, Governor Eno who joined others to welcome Akpabio, thanked President Tinubu for finding an Akwa Ibom son fitting for the exalted position of number three citizen, and pledged to work with the centre in spite of political party differences to bring development to the state.
He, therefore, appealed to the Senate President, not to truncate the governorship succession plan laid down in the state by successive approximations since the return of democracy in 1999, by allowing him to see through his eight years as was the case of Obong Victor Attah (1999-2007); Chief Godswill Akpabio (2007 -2015) and Mr. Udom Emmanuel (2015-2023).
Deputy Senate President, Jibrin Barau, and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, also extolled the leadership virtues of Senator Akpabio, noting that as the National Assembly Chairman, he has been a stabilising influence and ‘Unifier-in-Chief’ who is engendering the executive-legislative harmony.
