…as 12 presidential candidates declare support for his reelection
President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday said there is compelling need for historians and economists to document the 16 years “squander-mania and mismanagement” by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), so that future generations would not repeat the same mistakes.
The president spoke at State House, Abuja, Thursday, while receiving members of the Forum of Presidential Candidates & Political Parties for Good Governance, who decided to subordinate their ambitions, and have directed their supporters to vote for the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, presidential spokesperson Femi Adesina said in a statement.
“I am overwhelmed by your patriotism. The least you could do was to deny me votes in your immediate constituencies. However much your people loved me, they would have voted for their own first. I am really overwhelmed by your support,” President Buhari said.
Mr Buhari told his guests he was glad that Nigerians understood the three fundamentals on which the administration was anchored namely, securing the country, reviving the economy, and fighting corruption.
He listed many achievements in the three focal areas, and declared: “We lost unimaginable revenue in the 16 years of mismanagement of the country by the previous PDP administrations. Look at the state of roads, rail, power, and infrastructure generally, as at 2015, when we came into office. The roads were not done, neither were they even maintained. The number of lives and property lost on Lagos/Ibadan Expressway on a daily basis, for instance, was very sad and tragic. And many other roads like that in the country. If the various administrations had fixed infrastructure, Nigerians would have simply minded their businesses. They wouldn’t bother about who even governs them. But the mismanagement was unparalleled. Our historians and economists should help document it, so that future generations would take note, and not repeat the mistakes.”
President Buhari said after contesting four times, “before God agreed with me in 2015, I had a clear plan of what I wanted to do, and people are now seeing the progress we are making.”
The chairman of the forum, Shitu Mohammed Kabir, of Advanced Peoples Democratic Alliance (APDA), said they decided to throw in their lots with President Buhari because of advances made in security, economy, fighting corruption, infrastructural development, agricultural revolution, and many others.
According to Mr Kabir, “Nigerian political landscape is taking a new dimension…As a group of political parties committed to the realization of a new Nigeria, we identify with these laudable feats of the President, which are in proximity with ours, as exemplified in our manifestoes. We, therefore, wish to support President Buhari’s candidacy in the coming election, and direct all our teeming members across the length and breadth of Nigeria to go out in their numbers, to vote for APC candidates, Muhammadu Buhari/Yemi Osinbajo, in the coming election.”
According to a Presidency statement by spokesperson Femi Adesina, other members of the Forum that acquiesced to the endorsement include: Edozie Madu, Independent Democrats; Danjuma Mohammed, Movement for Restoration & Defence of Democracy; Yusuf Nadabo Dantalle, Allied Peoples Movement; Ahmed Buhari, Save Nigeria Party; and Alhaji Isah B. Dansarki, Mass Movement of Nigeria.
Yet others include: Ikechukwu Nwaokafor, Advance Congress of Democrats; Alista Soyode, Yes Party; Barrister Charles Ogbali, Advanced Nigeria Democratic Party; Kenneth Ibe Kalu, United Peoples Congress; Comrade Isiyaka Paul Femili, Nigeria Element Progressive Party; and Robinson Akpu, National Democratic Liberty Party.
