A former President of the Catholic Brothers United (CBU), Mr Vincent Uba, has said that Nigeria had recorded tremendous improvement since the assumption of office by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Uba in an opinion released on Sunday said that the remarkable improvement in the country can be comparable to the unprecedented development in Lagos state in the last couple of years.
With particular reference to the tenure of Baatunde Fashola, now Minister of Power Works and Housing, Uba said that Nigeria was witnessing changes similar to those seen in Lagos.
According to him, the mantra “Eko o nibaje” (Lagos will not spoil), which was used by Fashola while contesting for election should now be upgraded to “Nigeria o nibaje”,
He added that President Buhari was achieving similar giant strides stressing that by the end of Buhari’s second tenure, Nigerians would have how much work the President had been doing and would come to terms with the promised change and the mantra “Nigeria o nibaje”,
He said that the power sector had improved tremendously with Fashola as minister, adding that the appointment of Fashola to head three ministries should have convinced Nigerian that President Buhari is a detribalized Nigerian.
Read the full text of the release:
“NIGERIA O N’IBAJE
When in 2006 – 2007, His Excellency, Alhaji Babatunde Fashola, came out to contest the governorship election of Lagos State with the slogan “Eko o nibaje”, I tried to find out the meaning which I was told means “Lagos must not spoil”.
The slogan did not sound serious to me. It didn’t sound captivating as a campaign slogan. However, in May 2007, he won election and took over from his former boss, Senator Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu.
No sooner did he take over than that slogan started to make sense and meaning to me. His immediate predecessor having left, left a visible legacy of transformation of Lagos, the man Fashola quickly showed that he is a man who has come to work, a man who has come to serve, by keying into the transformation agenda of Tinubu and assiduously working to improve on it.
He began to show that Lagos must not only remain the center of excellence in the real sense of the word but also ‘must not spoil’.
He started to make the impossible possible. Recall the dreaded traffic situation of some parts of Lagos before he took over as governor; Oshodi, Mushin, Ojuelegba, CMS bus stop, Iyana Oba, Mile 2, Agric after trade fair, to mention only a few.
Fashola initiated action plans that eventually made these areas notorious for horrible traffic congestions, have free flow of traffic. Yes, the traffic jams in these areas magically disappeared and decency and discipline returned to these roads.
I remember hosting one of my cousins who came back from abroad and he passed through Oshodi. He couldn’t believe what he saw – free flow of traffic all through. Testimonies upon testimonies continued to mount on how traffic situations at other locations equally drastically improved.
