Prominent Nigerians including Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo; former Vice President, Namadi Sambo, the President of Dangote Group, AlhajiAliko Dangote, former and serving governors, Senators, politicians, entrepreneurs, among others yesterday converged on Lagos to honour former governor of Lagos State and National Leader of All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who clocked 65.
Speaking at ninth Colloquium held at Eko Hotels & Suites in Lagos to mark Tinubu’s 65th birthday President Muhammadu Buhari who was represented by the Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau, said that the Federal Government was already putting policies in place to encourage and facilitate Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to promote made in Nigeria goods, adding that same was part of his administration’s overall national economic policy.
In her remarks, Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun assured Nigerians that the country would soon be out of the economic recession, revealing that the federal government was already copying the Lagos template to revive the economy.
She said the Federal Government recently released N1trillion for capital expenditure to make the economy productive, adding that measures were being taken to bring about multiple streams of revenue.
“The economic template we copied from you (Lagos) is now being implemented for economic recovery of the country and we are not ashamed to say it. The impact of that template is that many of the states are now copying it especially in the area of IGR,” Adeosun said.
In his address, Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode described he former Governor of the State and National Leader of All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as a great Nigerian political product and a successful leader who not only mentored many leaders in the country but laid the solid foundation for the sustained progress of the State.
Ambode said the test of any successful leader all over the world was in the number of leaders such leaders created, and that using the said globally accepted parameter, Tinubu without doubt, is a winner.
Also speaking, the celebrant Asiwaju Bola Tinubu said it was time for the Federal Government to press forward with its national industrial policy and national infrastructural plan, especially by creating infrastructural funding from financial institutions.
