Senator Adedayo Adeyeye is the chairman of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Board and a former Minister of State for Works. In this interview, he speaks on achievements of President Bola Tinubu and why Nigerians should support his administration, among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU writes

What is your assessment of President Tinubu’s administration in two years and what has been your experience as chairman of the Ports Authority?

I think if I am going to score the president for his performance in the last two years, I’ll probably give him almost 99 per cent. I think he has done extremely well. I think those of us who started this campaign, that is South West Agenda for Asiwaju (SWAGA), which was the group I led, are not disappointed.

We have been vindicated that we’ve sold a very capable leader to Nigerians. President Tinubu has been extremely courageous in terms of the economic policies that he had initiated.

Number one, the removal of the forest subsidy. I think that national and international observers, business people and economists, have all commended that effort because Nigeria was on the throes of death by the time President Tinubu took over.

There was not even any money to pay for importation of fuel, not to talk of even subsidizing it. And we were like Father Christmas to our neighbouring countries. The country was absolutely bankrupt. So, it was a courageous decision that he took.

And mind you, other leaders have contemplated taking the same decision, even since the time of President Olusegun Obasanjo but they lacked the courage to take it. But he was able to see that without taking that decision, there was no way Nigeria could move forward.

The economy would have completely collapsed by now. We talk of increasing fuel prices, but by now, without any money to import fuel, we would have all been riding bicycles.

How about the floating of the Naira?

The floating of the currency concurrently with that was a very brilliant move by the President because we were having rent-seekers in the economy, who were feeding fat on the resources of the nation.

Because of their connections with the powers that be, the Central Bank and other powerful agencies, they collect dollars and then go and sell at the black market. Without doing anything, they make huge profits.

By floating the Naira vis-a-vis the Dollar and other foreign currencies, that rent-seeking activity had been brought to an end. Now, we have a situation in which the Naira is gradually maintaining stability.

In the last one year, the exchange rates have been reasonably stable and businessmen and other economic agents are able to plan given the fact that there is stability in the foreign exchange regime. So, the combination of these two factors have created what I would say has freed the Nigerian economy, so that it could breathe at last. It was suffocating before. Now the economy could breathe, and the economy is alive.

Also, it has allowed the government to have enough resources not only to service its debts, but even to pay back some of the debts, and then to be able to release more resources to the state governments and the local governments. All of them were virtually collapsing, unable to pay salaries by the time President Tinubu assumed office. Now, the state governments and local governments have never had it so good like before.

They are now not only able to pay their debts, many of them are paying salaries, and they are able to now invest in projects that are beneficial to the people.

So, I think by all the parameters, President Tinubu has done extremely well. And he has been bold enough to take on very important projects, like the coastal road. This coastal road had been on the drawing board. I was in the Ministry of Works, and I saw it.

Nigeria can never drift towards a one-party state. What we are experiencing now is the dominance of a political party, which is the APC

And the man came in, and he decided that this was one way to open up the Nigerian economy. By the time this project is completed, you will see the growth of new towns and new economic activities along the coast of Nigeria. It will be a new Nigeria entirely. And I can tell you; it will be like the eighth wonder of the world.

There’s criticism around the fact that the Nigeria Port Economy Regulatory Agency Bill, which was passed through the National Assembly, continues to sit on the president’s table. Can you give us some insight, why you think this bill continues to sit on the president’s table?

Lawmaking is a general responsibility of both the legislature and the presidency. The lawmakers pass the bill, and then they forward it to the president to assent or not to assent.

If he decides to veto any bill, it can be overridden by a two-third majority of the votes in the National Assembly. But the president does not have to rush to assent any bill.

It is his responsibility to look at the bill critically, to look at areas that might have been overlooked by the legislature, to even see where additions could be made, and then they forward it back to the legislature.

I think the President is in the process of doing that. You know he’s a meticulous person. He’s not a person who will rush to do things. So, I believe that at the appropriate time, he will take action on that bill.

Do you think there are challenges within the framework of that bill because some people are saying there’s pressure from agencies such as Nigerian Ports Authority and maritime agencies?

It’s natural that agencies will not want their powers taken away from them. And sometimes people rush to make decisions or take positions that have not critically taken account of all interests.

The Nigerian Ports Authority is saddled with its own responsibilities, just as the other agencies in the maritime sector. And some people believe that you can just one day take away all those responsibilities.

I think the President is in a position to take a second look at all these things and come to a decision. I don’t want to comment too much on whether NPA, NIMASA, all those agencies are lobbying the President. This president is not the kind of person you can reroute into something he has not considered critically.

This is a president who is painstaking in taking decisions. So, what I would just advise critics or those who are observers in this sector is to wait for the President’s decision and I believe his decision will be in the national interest.

You were the coordinator of SWAGA in 2023. Now there’s a lot of coalition and President Tinubu himself has become the bride of Nigerian politics. What do you think of this coalition and the defections in the direction of the All Progressives Congress (APC)?

Regarding the political situation in the country, what is going on is not unexpected. Number one, President Tinubu has performed exceptionally well. As far as the economy is concerned, these governors realized too well that without his policies, they would not be governors effectively.

I mean that many of them would have run away from their state capitals because they would not have had money to even pay salaries. Now, they have a lot of money. Some of them don’t even know what to do with it.

I’ve read comments by people saying some of the governors don’t know what to do with the money they are receiving. So, they are happy with the President on that score. And then the President, I call him the grandmaster of Nigerian politics, give it to him, since 1999, nobody is as politically savvy as Tinubu.

People come to him easily, and he’s open to everybody. So, the governors feel that this is a person they can relate with. And given the political atmosphere of Nigeria, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seems to be in disarray.

After the election, Peter Obi seems not to be in control of the Labour Party and we don’t have any other political group that you can say is going to effectively challenge the President. In the present circumstances, you find a lot of people drifting towards the APC but they’re no actually drifting towards the APC per se.

They’re drifting towards Tinubu because this is a president they like. This is a president they want to support for the second term. And I do not see anything bad particularly in it. Every political system has either one-party or two-party domination. In other words, what I’m saying is that we have several parties, but one can be dominant. Or in other systems, two can be dominant.

In America, you talk of Republican and Democratic parties. But don’t forget, there are at least 100 political parties in the United States. In Britain, Conservative Party and Labour Party are dominant. But there are over 393 registered political parties in Britain. And we have seen countries like Singapore, where one party had been ruling since 1965.

There are other political parties in that country, but one has remained dominant. In Japan, one party was in power since 1955 till this year. So, it’s not particularly a bad thing, provided that party is really serving the interests of the people, and provided that party is really about cohesion and unity of the country.

Some people are talking about Nigeria drifting towards a one-party state but Nigeria can never drift towards a one party state. What we are experiencing for now is the dominance of a political party, which is the APC. We have had a situation like that before. The PDP was dominant for 16 years.

Don’t you think that it is not healthy to have a dominant system that makes the opposition feel that the environment is not conducive for a competitive run against the dominating party?

I don’t think it is particularly uneasy, as I mentioned earlier, to have a system with a dominant party or two parties that are dominant. I mentioned the example of Singapore.

One party has been dominant there since 1965 and they have done well. Singapore was taken from the third world nation to a first world nation within that period by one party. There are other parties and they contest every election, but the people think that the ruling party is doing well. In Nigeria, the PDP was dominant for about 16 years.

A former chairman of the PDP once said that the party was going to rule for 60 years but Nigerian people decided otherwise in 2015. APC is dominant today, maybe because of the charismatic leadership of President Tinubu. But in another 10, 15 years down the line, I know Nigeria, another party may be in power and another party may become dominant.

So, it’s not a particularly unnerving situation. Things change because people think the party is there. APC is delivering now. That is why people are crowding around it. Regarding the issue of people campaigning so early, when we still have two more years before the next election, you cannot blame the ruling party for that.

People started forming their coalition months ago. They started building opposition to the government, saying they want to form a coalition that will oppose President Tinubu in the next election. Every action naturally attracts an opposite and equal reaction.

So, people also reacted by saying, this man you want to oppose, we are forming a coalition against, we will also let you know that we are standing by him. That is why those endorsements are there. But it has not caused any distraction in government. I can assure you of that. It has not caused any distraction.

The government is functioning; the government is working. And everything that needs to be done is being done. So, we shouldn’t bother ourselves about that. I don’t see anything wrong with it at all. And let me tell you, it’s not too early. to start endorsing or start campaigning because by this time next year, we will have the primaries.

In America, after one or two years, you start the primaries cycle. So, we are also operating with the same presidential system of government. If the president was going to go around all the states in Nigeria to seek endowments for his primaries, we know that it’s not too early to start campaigns.

So, I don’t think it is too early, provided the government is not distracted. It’s not a formal campaign, per se, for which INEC can sanction anybody. Let me tell you, I started SWAGA in the year 2020, during the time of COVID. The government of President Muhammadu Buhari was barely six months into the second term.

People said it was too early but I told them it was not too early. You don’t wait until the last minute because if you are serious-minded, you start very early. And I want to assure you that even SWAGA, my group, we will soon be launching our campaign again for the second term of President Tinubu.