President
Muhammadu Buhari has said that the split within the Ohanaeze Igbo
socio-cultural group over its reported endorsement of Atiku Abubakar, the
Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, did not surprise him.
Speaking
at a meeting with a select group of South-east leaders on Friday, at the State
House, Abuja, President Buhari said that the moment the so-called resolution
was announced, he got calls from well-meaning leaders from the region asking
him to disregard it as it was without any substance.
According
to him, “From that moment, I knew that the resolution would not stand, and
alas, there it was.”
President
Buhari said that his party, the All Progressives Congress, got it right from
the very beginning and that the major problems facing the country were mainly
on security, corruption and the economy.
“We have
done so much. Given the chance, we will do more. Given every chance, we will
tell Nigerians where we were in 2015 and what we have achieved up to now.
“We will
not get tired of speaking about the golden opportunity Nigeria lost during 16
years of the PDP. We earned money, which we didn’t use,” he said.
“The state
of infrastructure we inherited was terrible – no roads, the railway was killed
and power. They lacked conscience because anybody with conscience will not do
what they did. We will report them to Nigerians. Let anybody lead this country
but not the PDP. They were so reckless with the resources of the country,” the
President said.
“If you
ruin the economy, send your children abroad to get education, won’t they come
back?” he asked, adding: “I said it 30 years ago that this is the only country
we have. We must stay here and salvage it together.”
The
leaders of the delegation, Emeka Ekwuosa, and the National Chairman of the
United Progressive Party (UPP), Chekwas Okorie, informed President Buhari that
the Igbos and South-easterners generally understood the good things he was
doing for Nigeria which they said, had unfortunately been misunderstood.
They
promised to mobilise support for him in the south-east, saying that his
re-election will be a national consensus.
GARBA
SHEHU
Senior
Special Assistant to President
(Media
& Publicity)
November
16, 2018
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