Buhari is a better captain - Ogun gov
Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State has described President Muhammadu Buhari as “a better captain” steering the ship of the All Progressives Congress (APC)led administration.
The governor was speaking at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, with State House reporters, yesterday, after meeting with the president on the state of affairs in his state and the need for the federal government to permit Ogun and Lagos states to construct the Lagos-Ota-Abeokuta road and the Agbara-Dusada-Atan road linking Agbara Industrial Estate.
He said the president was a meticulous personality who attended to the needs of the governors without announcing his interventions in states.
He said: “Let me first say to you that Mr President is so meticulous. He is so methodical. He is extremely organised. And at any point in time any governor wants to see the president, all you have to do is to ask him. And the president will give you audience. He will give audience and he will take note. For those of us that know the president, he is someone who believes in constituted authority.
“When a governor says these are my problems, the president takes it to heart and he follows through the details. One cannot ask for a better captain of our ship. That is what I have seen in Mr President and that is what I probably think most people will not know because Mr President is not a man of many words.”
The governor, while speaking on the recent fuel price and electricity tariff hikes, justified the actions taken by the concerned agencies of government.
He said: “First, you want to enjoy lower prices when the prices of crude are low and then not want to pay for a slight increase when there is an increase in price of crude. The price of crude is directly proportional to the price of refined products. So, I believe that is what is happening at the moment.
“In terms of the tariff increase in the electricity industry, again, we also have to decide what we want to do. We all complain that we are not generating enough electricity and we all complain about the fact that we don’t have the right infrastructure to transmit electricity. We complain about the fact that the distribution companies do not seem to be efficient. The problem is because, perhaps, the pricing is not right.
“If you want people to invest in production of gas, in gas floatation, which our turbines and our power plants rely on, we must ensure that the entire value chain is profitable. Because if one part of it is not profitable, that means there will be a shortfall in one of the value chains, if we don’t have enough investment.
“So, if you don’t have enough investment in gas gathering, if we don’t have enough investment in gas transportation, we will not have enough gas supply to sustain the quantum of generation we require as a government or as a nation.
“And when we don’t have that, we don’t have enough that will be transmitted to our homes and the transmission grid, then we continue to complain.
“I’m sure NERC is doing everything in its power to ensure that ...as the regulator. But truly, we must begin to pay what we need to pay so that we can have the right amount of investment in the entire value chain of the electricity industry.”