Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele has said President Bola Tinubu’s emergence as the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate is capable of deepening and finetuning ongoing reforms to make Nigeria a prosperous country.

He made this remark in his congratulatory message to Tinubu yesterday. Tinubu recorded a landslide victory in Saturday’s primary conducted nationwide by securing 10.99 million votes, compared to 16,503 votes polled by his sole challenger Stanley Osifo.

Bamidele said: “I am therefore confident that your candidacy will help to fine -tune ongoing reforms across all sectors of the country and make us a prosperous nation. Your track records show that you are an agent of change. “You became President when Nigeria’s economy was at its lowest ebb. You didn’t shy away from taking tough decisions. Rather, you prioritised critical actions to secure future generations.

“You took the bull by the horns and confronted the problems head-on. This decisiveness has sparked economic progress in virtually every facet of our national life. No state is borrowing just to pay salaries any longer.

“At the same time, you have turned the country into a construction site, with the ongoing 750-kilometre Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road Project, the 1,068-kilometre Sokoto– Badagry highway, and other strategic road infrastructure projects that will connect different cities in the North and South.

“Your administration has introduced the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) to boost access to tertiary institutions across the federation. “In three years, no fewer than 1,197,626 students have registered with NELFUND, 3,138,390 loan applications received, 1,613,132 institutional loans processed and 1,525,528 upkeep loans paid.

At least, N242 billion had been disbursed to tertiary students since the scheme took off. “From 1.273 million bpd in April 2023, President Tinubu has provided strategic leadership that increased oil production to 1.71 million bpd.