Obong Nsima Ekere, Ex-managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and Ex-deputy Governor of Akwa Ibom State, has endorsed current reforms masterminded by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration.
Ekere, who made an appearance on Channels TV’s magazine show, Inside Sources, on Friday, appealed to Nigerians to be patient with the federal government because “President Tinubu has the nation’s best interest at heart.”
According to him, “Nigeria is a work in progress” and in safe hands under the Tinubu Presidency.
“Nigeria is a work in progress, we are not where we should be as a country considering how many years since independence but some progress is being made, probably talk about the last two years of the present administration, you can see he (Tinubu) came in with a lot of audacious policies and reforms.
“Talk about the removal of the petroleum subsidy, fiscal policy changes, the truth of the matter is that the data is telling us a lot of progress is being made, I know it’s yet to translate to better living conditions for Nigerians but it is a work in progress. Hopefully, in the next couple of years, Nigerians would be out of the woods,’ he reasoned.
Ekere, a technocrat and also a former Chairman of Ibom Power Company, suggested that for the Tinubu administration and Nigeria to blossom properly, the power sector has to be fixed.
His words: “There are a couple of areas that we need to pay attention to, especially the issue of power. A country of over 250 million people generating 4500 MW of electricity is totally unacceptable. I believe President Tinubu has the courage, has the experience, has what it takes to solve the power problem. We have to generate more power and build infrastructures. I believe power can be a major catalyst for growth.”
He however suggested that a state of emergency be declared in the power sector, saying “the State of Emergency would give the president the power to do things to attack the issues frontally without the usual bureaucracy.”
Citing inefficiency and insincerity on the part of distribution companies, Obong Ekere recommended the “takeover of DISCOs by the federal government, injection of funds, upgrade of facilities, before proper privatization is done.”
