Minister of Works and Housing Mr Babatunde Fashola has thrown his weight behind the National Leader and Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
For him, compared with the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the APC candidate, Tinubu will make a better President and take Nigeria farther on the path of growth and development.
He spoke, Sunday, on Politics Today, a Channels TV programme, anchored by Seun Okinbaloye.
Fashola who said he has had intimate relationship with the two frontline politicians, said based on his rating and knowledge of the two men, Tinubu will make a better option at the helms of affairs.
Addressing the issue of te Muslim/Muslim ticket that has continued to dog the ruling party, Fashola urged Nigerians to do away with mixing religion with politics.
“My position have always been that there is too much of religion in our national life. I believe time has come for us to put religion where it truly belongs, in our the mosques, churches, and in our private lives, adding that religion have no place being celebrated or mixed with politics or celebrated as a national ethos,” Fashola said.
For him, time has come for Nigeria to try something new and to throw away the toga of fear which has bedeviled us for a long time.
He however urge the two politicians who, at the weekend had rather started attacking each other to put a stop to personal attacks and return to debating issues in order to give Nigerians an opportunity to make informed decision on who can better handle the nation’s challenges.
He said based on the achievements of the Buhari administration, APC will have no problem being re-elected in February 2023.
Fashola who fielded questions ranging from his mandate on Works and provision of infrastructure to insecurity and politics, said within the ambit of funds available to the government, the Buhari administration has performed creditably well.
The Minister also took time to respond to the Ogun State Governor’s threat to take over the Sango-Ota-Abeokuta Expressway, if the Federal Government refused to accelerate the road’s repairs.
He said the road, which is one of the SUKUK funded projects of the Federal Government has already been awarded to Julius Berger and work has started on the Lagos end of the project, adding that the delay being experienced on the project may not be unconnected with the lack of funds.
He said the Ogun State Governor Prince Dapo Abiodun should concentrate attention on roads belonging to the state government, adding that any state that wanted to take over a Federal Government road must be ready to contend with changing the Federal Highway Roads Act, which is the law which specified the classes of road network belonging to the Federal Government.
He said within the limit of the funds available to the government, it has tried to bring relief to Nigerians adding that the benefit of the infrastructure being provided by the government would soon begin to manifest in productivity.
Fashola who remained unruffled throughout the interview said though the administration still contends with issues of insecurity, a lot of things have changed even though new challenges seemed to have emerged to challenge the government.
He also felt worried over the continued incarceration of passengers of the Kaduna bound train on march 28, this year, though optimistic that the government would come round for the victims before the end of its tenure.
Fashola said conversations around insecurity needed to go deeper than the calls for the removal of service chiefs as a result of incompetence, adding that so many factors are responsible for the festering sore that insecurity has become.
Fashola believed the nation would soon come out of the woods, because the Buhari administration is busy building a solid foundation for the nation’s economic prosperity even with the very scarce resources at its disposal.
He said time has come for Nigerians to dump the Home Economics mentality of cautious investments which made a previous government pay back a whopping $12 billion in debt repayment when they could have spread the amount to provide infrastructure which has been hugely deficient for a very long period of time.