Senate President Godswill Akpabio, has disclosed that Nigeria was barely surviving at the time President Bola Tinubu took over office.

Akpabio said Tinubu was full of regrets as he took over the exalted political office in the land.

The Senate President stated this while addressing party supporters at the stadium at Ikot Ekpene local government area of Akwa Ibom State for the North-West’s constituency briefing for the yuletide celebrations.

According to Akpabio, the president’s diminished enthusiasm that fuelled his (Tinubu’s) regrets was borne out of the fact that “Nigeria was on life support at the time he took over,” having been milked dry by sleazy state actors, especially the embattled former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, whom he said, “left a very deep hole in the nation’s treasury.”

He recalled that President Tinubu, who addresses him (Akpabio) as “small President”, had confided in him on a possible way out of the seeming economic logjam for easy implementation of what he promised Nigerians during the election campaigns.

However, hope, the Senate President assured, was already on the horizon, as the economic reforms policies put in place were already on the verge of navigating the country out of the woods.

“Emefiele messed up the economy,” he stressed, adding that “recovery maybe painful, but it’s just a function of time for Nigeria to return to an El – Dorado.”

Towards this end, Akpabio stated that works were currently in progress towards a holistic peace and unity for sustainable development to thrive across the six – geopolitical zones.

To achieve this new Nigeria project, the National Assembly leader explained that such a harmonised development paradigm informed the president’s decision to create development commissions for enhanced inclusive developments framework across the six geopolitical zones.

Akpabio, noted that the South East has enormous ecological challenges that affected most roads in the zone, explaining that such problems forced the president to hear calls for the establishment of the South East Development Commission, and others in the other five zones.

 

He, therefore, appealed to his Southeastern in-laws, whom he recalled, didn’t vote for the ruling APC at the centre in the last presidential election, to ensure such attitude changes in 2027, as much was already in the offing for them from the centre in the current dispensation.

 

“The votes from my Senatorial District (Ikot Ekpene of just 10 LGAs) for Mr. President alone were more than the whole votes from the entire South East of five states put together,” he reminded some of the South East national lawmakers and stakeholders, who accompanied him to the ceremony.

 

Items shared in the spirit of the season across political party lines included rice, cars, buses, motorcycles, tricycles (Keke napep), tricycle pickup trucks, grinding machines, sewing machines, deep freezers and other vocational training materials.