The Chairman of Bayelsa chapter of the All Progressives’ Congress (APC), Dr Denis Otiotio, has said that APC’s presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, is the best amongst the contenders for the Nigerian Presidency.
Speaking on Tuesday in Yenagoa, the APC chairman stated that the duo of Tinubu/Shetima is the best team for the top job in Nigeria.
Comparing APC’s candidates to other candidates, Otiotio noted that Tinubu may be old but has the capacity to lead, adding that what he needs is to put competent hands that will do the work while he supervises.
Otiotio maintained that the APC government at the centre, led by Muhammadu Buhari, has not failed, stating that current challenges before the country are not peculiar to Nigeria alone.
“I can assure you that Tinubu and his running mate, compared to all other candidates, are the best. Shetimma is the most highly read in all the presidential candidates. He is not a typical northerner, he is an intellectual.
“Tinubu might be old but the good thing is that he has the capacity of gathering competent hands to run the government. To be a governor, you don’t need to know everything.
“Tinubu is old but he is energetic. As a president, what you need to do is to bring together those with the capacity and develop Nigeria. For now, in all the presidential candidates, Tinubu is the best.
“Governance is all about appointing people you can trust and giving them free hands to run then you stay and manage them and supervise,” Otiotio said.
He assured that Tinubu has demonstrated it in Lagos state and he can do it for Nigeria.
Otiotio recalled that Tinubu was able to run Lagos state years ago when former president Olusegun Obasanjo withheld Lagos state allocation for 14 months.
“If they withhold Bayelsa state allocation for two months, this state will collapse,” Otiotio said.
On the claims of prudence by the labour party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, Otiotio said: “As a state governor, you are not supposed to be saving, you are supposed to be planning and investing in infrastructure.
“If APC had failed in governance, by now Nigeria would have collapsed. The problem Nigeria is facing is not peculiar to Nigeria.
“There is inflation everywhere because there are things that were not envisaged like the Russian/Ukrainian war and because of oil theft, our production capacity has drastically reduced and if this trend continues, we will at a time get zero allocation and most states like Bayelsa will collapse.
“If PDP was still in power, Nigeria would have collapsed. I agree that even in Buhari’s government, we have some lapses but I can tell you that during the PDP government sometimes they take our crude oil, sell it, drop the money offshore and come back. They will not remit the money. They go to CBN and collect money in cash,” he said.
He noted that Buhari, who is perceived as old school, has kept his ministers for the past four years because he wanted to make sure that the people he is appointing are the people he can trust, a development, he said, has brought stability. (NAN)
