APC Never Promised Nigerians Miracles - Rotimi Amaechi Reply Critics

Chibuike Amaechi

 

Speaking at the Maritime Technical Summit organised in Lagos on Thursday by the Associa­tion of Marine Engineers and Sur­veyors (AMES), ahead of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Fed­eral Government’s town-hall meeting in Lagos on Mon­day, the Minister of Transport, Chibuike Amaechi, has urged cit­izens to exercise patience and give the President Muhammadu Buha­ri-led administration more time.

 

Amaechi who was the special guest of honour at the event, acknowledged the masses’ grow­ing disenchantment with the pre­sent government following the yet-to-be fulfilled promises and even the alleged denied ones.

 

However, against such high expectations, he said that as the Director-General of the APC Pres­idential Campaign Organisation, he has “watched the video from beginning to the end and there was nowhere we promised Nige­rians that we are miracle workers.

 

“In fact, towards the end of the campaign, because expecta­tions were very high, if you lis­tened to us, we began to lower ex­pectations by telling you no, no, no, the challenges are going to be extremely difficult, but if we get your mandate, we will confront those challenges.”

 

Reclining on the party’s now ready defence, he said the “prob­lems that were caused in the course of 15 years of PDP (Peo­ples Democratic Party) certainly cannot be solved in eight months.”

 

The minister, who said he was not holding brief for others, insisted that the Minister of State for Petroleum and Group Manag­ing Director of the Nigerian Na­tional Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, was doing his best in the given circum­stances.

 

“Take the oil subsidy regime (for instance). Now, there is a huge argument on how to balance the interest of the poor by not re­moving oil subsidy and the inter­est of the nation by ensuring that the rich do not have access to the so-called subsidy, and letting the oil subsidy go to enable investors come into the construction of re­fineries.

 

“It was a huge challenge to us because if you just leave the poor, they will die of poverty; the rich men will just exploit the chanc­es, so the need to balance it, and it is affecting the supply of fuel. The Minister of State for Petroleum is quite smart, but we need time and patience.

 

“Don’t forget that we met queues. The fact that it was re­solved quickly was not what you think. Until we find a permanent solution, we’re going to have those queues. We want understanding.”

 

According to him, there is nowhere in the world that change is not painful, and by the speech­es the party delivered during its electioneering campaigns, which he said were clear and carefully made, “we said we would confront corruption and we are confronting corruption. You may say they are cosmetic changes; the changes you are expecting are changes that af­fect your purse.''