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A few weeks before the general elections, Minister of Work and Housing, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, has told captains of industries and entrepreneurs that the choices they make will be defining for their businesses and livelihood.
The former Lagos state governor said at the beginning of the administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the party has confronted the challenges of security, economy and corruption which the opposition has denied in their 16 years of reign.
Speaking as one of the discussants at an interactive session with the Organised Private Sector in Lagos, on Monday, the APC chieftain advised Nigerians to choose between a political party that denied the kidnap of Chibok school girls and a party that accepted the reality and confronted it headlong.
Addressing the gathering, he said, “This is a pleasant opportunity for me to interface with you again and to perhaps ask you to be unemotional and dispassionate in the choices you’ll make in the next few days at the polls.
This is because the options and choices you make will be so defining not only for our businesses and families and livelihood.
Last week, I was in Lagos, and I spoke about the capacity that requires getting the job done with your support and votes, I have had the privilege to do this job for eight years.
And somebody panicked and started producing skits about me and that I was arrested in Belgium on the same day and that I was playing God.
The answer to criticism is not to resort to God. It demonstrates that you are losing the argument first of all and it is not to start producing skits. You will be Governor and you will be criticised. Do you want to respond to criticism by producing skits or by issuing press releases?
You get the job done and that is what our Governor, Sanwo-Olu, has tried to do here. It is not an easy job. It just raises the question of readiness. The voters should be very observant. It is not an easy job. It raises the question of readiness. This is not about reality TV, it’s about real life.”
Speaking further, he said, “We inherited insurgency and terrorism. Over 250 students were kidnapped from a school in Chibok in 2014. But the PDP government denied it ever happened. I hope you remember.
Between 2010 and 2015, the PDP government stopped holding public functions. The National Day and Labour Day celebrations were held in the courtyard of the villa but upon assumption of the APC government, we confronted the Chibok girls issue and out of the over 250 girls that were kidnapped, 178 girls were returned and about 57 girls escaped.
So there is still work to do but there is a choice you have to make which is between one who denies the problem and one who confronts the problem and tried to solve them.
The foundation for a resurgent economy has been laid in eight years half of the time it took the opposition to ignore them. What is the choice before you? Do you want to go back to those that didn’t attend to them or do you want to trust those who have started the job?”
In his remarks, the Lagos State governor and one of the discussants, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said Nigeria cannot be an experimental trajectory.
He assured of the state government’s continued activation of the Organised Private Sector.
He said, “You cannot take away the Lagos success story without understanding what has been our pedigree, what has been our growth trajectory and what continuity has perfected for all of us.
You can see that indeed the success story is as humble and modest as we believe it is, and we believe we can still do more, Lagos will continue to remain the rising shine of our country.
So the question, we have to ask ourselves as we decide on the next couple of days is, where are the alternatives?
Nigeria cannot be an experimental trajectory. You cannot come to the highest leadership position in our country with people that don’t have experience or with people that cannot show who they have trained. Or the people that have worked with them or the leaders they have groomed.
That is why we feel extremely passionate and committed to saying that if we are all using soft things to say that somebody is not looking we’ll determine who runs this country, I think we will be doing a disservice.
The renewed hope for Nigerians tied it with Rising Lagos, we believe, we can make it and bring prosperity for you the Organised Private Sector and all the vulnerable people in our society so that we can take our country to an enviable height.
I need not say much. You know where our heart is and we believe you will all do the right thing.”
Reacting on behalf of the Organised Private Sector, the Chairman of Oodua Group, Otunba Bimbo Ashiru who spoke on behalf of the Organised Private Sector, said, “The danger of having a hostile government is that the people will suffer for it because when a new government comes into power, it is going to start its projects and abandoned the Federal government projects.
It is important to get the presidency to work together with the state because if you don’t get the presidency right, you won’t get the state right. So there is the bandwagon effect. We must all sit together and decide on what we want but I pray that Lagosians will appreciate what has happened and try as much as possible to vote for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu for the second term.”
The session which was moderated by the Chairman of Titan Bank, Tunde Lemo, had as discussants the Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Works and Housing Minister Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), Senior Special Adviser to the President on Sustainable Development Goals Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire and Director General of Budget Office for the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Mr Ben Akabueze.
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