Student loans: Tinubu doesn’t need to apologise for APC’s unfulfilled promises, says Keyamo

Festus Keyamo, the spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council, says Bola Tinubu doesn’t need to apologise for campaign promises made by the party which have not been fulfilled.

He said this on Friday in an interview on Channels Television.

A clip was played during the interview, wherein Tinubu — now the APC presidential candidate — spoke during a previous presidential campaign for the party, and among the promises was loan for students.

Speaking on why the campaign promise is yet to become reality, Keyamo said Tinubu has the benefit of “force majeure” and is not liable for the unfulfilled promises by the APC considering the state of the economy when the APC administration took over in 2015.

Force majeure is a term in contract law that removes liability for unforeseen events that prevent participants from fulfilling obligations.

Keyamo added that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration could not go through with the scheme because there was no revenue to execute it when they took over.

“Do you have to apologise to perhaps force majeure? When you have a force majeure, you don’t apologise. In force majeure, when two people are in a contractual agreement, if a force majeure happens, nobody is liable to the other,” he said.

“We came in and met recession, but because of the deftness of the handling of the economy, we came out of the recession faster than the IMF predicted — and even the second recession.

“And we met low oil production. We met those problems on the ground. So, there was a problem with revenue but the dream remained alive. The dream to fulfil those promises is still alive today as we begin to ramp up revenues and rescue the economy from where PDP left the economy.”

Speaking on the inclusion of promises such as student loans in the Tinubu manifesto unveiled on Friday, titled ‘Renewed Hope’, Keyamo said the ground work is being laid for the student loan scheme to be realised.

He said if elected, the Tinubu administration would have ramped up enough revenue to execute the scheme. 

“The roadmap and the foundation are being laid. You also need to ramp up revenues first and make them available for people and students to enjoy,” he said.

“The soundbite is further promotion of our candidate because it showed his consistency of thought.”