By Deji Elumoye
Senate Minority Leader, Eyinnaya Abaribe, has disagreed with the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Aviation, Smart Adeyemi, for describing the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as a non performing and failed party.
Adeyemi had while contributing to a motion last Wednesday on the urgent need for the completion and take off of the federal government aquaculture project at Idah, Kogi State, moved by Senator Isah Jibrin, accused the PDP of squandering available resources between 1999 and 2015 when it controlled the government at the centre.
Abaribe, however, was quick to tell Adeyemi to confine himself to the motion in question, saying he knew and could mention names of those who benefitted under the PDP administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.
According to Abaribe, “I will like to make this very small contribution. While we commend this motion, the rest of the members of the Senate know that some people benefited by going in the night to the Presidential Villa every time as member of the inner caucus of the President Jonathan government.”
Adeyemi, who was a PDP senator in the sixth and seventh Senate from 2007 to 2015 before defecting to the All Progressives Congress (APC) on which platform he contested and won in 2019, had while contributing to the motion, declared that “there was a time in this country when we had enough resources, and our problem was how to invest and utilise the resources when crude oil was selling at $140 to $150 per barrel.
“There was a party that got those resources but failed in its utilisation. We fail to realise that the meagre resources available in our country today is being well utilised by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“There was one party that was making billions from sales of crude oil. It never thought of how to diversify the economy. Now we have the APC government in place that is doing well.
“We are happy that we are a very progressive government; a party that is well focused; a party that has diversified our economy.”
He observed that the completion of the Aquaculture project in Idah would not only increase fish production in the country, but most importantly, provide job opportunities for the teeming youths looking for job.
Adeyemi stated that: “The project is a laudable one, and when completed, the country would benefit a lot from it.
“I am sure the Senate president and others who belong to the progressives would be very happy that this type of project would be completed by the Buhari administration.
“It is going to open up other frontiers that remain untouched even when the country was having billions of naira from crude oil sales.
“President Buhari is using very scarce resources available in a manner that all of us are very proud of.”
The Senate President, Dr. Ahmad Lawan, in his contribution said: “You see how gracious the progressives can be? But we are all progressives; you missed the opportunity to justify our thinking that you are also a progressive.
“I know what you people did in the seventh Assembly, that axis o
