December 21, 2017

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Science and Technology, Sen. Ajayi Boroffice, on Friday said the Buhari–led administration had performed excellently in its anti- corruption fight and tackling insurgency.

Boroffice made the commendation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Friday in Abuja.

He said in view of the myriad of challenges inherited by the present administration, it deserved the nation’s commendation.

“Judging from the challenges this administration incurred, particularly in terms of insecurity and economic meltdown, I score it 90 per cent.

“Of course it is not easy to fight insurgency within and outside your border. Insurgency in the North East is a serious problem.

“No nation can stabilise with that level of insecurity but the Federal Government is doing its best trying to eliminate them and helping the IDPS to relocate.

“We also have the men in the East and the Avengers in the South-South. So it is a very serious issue.

“It is just like engaging in a civil war yet we have relative peace and we are making progress. I think personally the Federal Government has done well,’’ he said.

He urged Nigerians to exercise patience with the Federal Government while it is working to stabilise the economy, noting that with the effort being made, Nigerians’ condition of living would soon improve.

“When PDP was in power, oil was selling for 110 dollars per barrel. By the time the APC government took over it came down to about 40, 45 dollars per barrel.

“Not only that, we were producing 2.1 million barrels of crude oil per day and because of the activities of the Avengers, it crashed to less than that.

“With that, the revenue, which accrued to Federal Government from oil which constitutes about 90 per cent of our Internally Generated Revenue, crashed and it affected the programmes of government. Nevertheless this government has tried.

“Huge amount of money has been committed to infrastructure development, the rail, the road, power is becoming more and more stable and the N-Power programme which is touching many lives currently,’’ he said.

On performance of the legislature, the lawmaker said the National Assembly had done better than the previous ones in terms of productivity and stability, stressing that it had also performed well in terms of transparency and inclusiveness.

He said, “one thing that was common with the national assembly in the past was that they kept changing leaders every six months but we have not had that experience in the eighth assembly.

“Also for the first time, we were able to publish our budget because people thought there is a mystery about our budget.

“In terms of performance, I think we have done very well.

“In the last assembly, I was able to sponsor only one or two bills but I have now been able to sponsor about six bills and that is almost the same thing with other lawmakers.

“The whole thing has been restructured. You know when a motion is coming in, you know when reports are coming and when bills are coming in.’’

Boroffice expressed optimism that the eighth national assembly would achieve more before the present administration’s end of tenure in 2019.