Wednesday, 7 January 2015

I’ll expose failures of ex-heads of state – Jonathan | I’ll send corrupt Nigerians to Kirikiri – Buhari

PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday, pleaded with Nigerians to vote him in for a second term on account of his achievements in the last six years. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, while inaugurating the Goodluck/Sambo 2015 Presidential Campaign Organisation, PCO, at the PDP Presidential Campaign office, Legacy House, Maitama, Abuja promised to unfold to Nigerians what his government has done in the last couple of years that presidents and heads of state before him could not achieve. I will expose my predecessors’ failings –Jonathan Jonathan promised to expose the failings of his predecessors including Buhari, which stunted the country’s growth and development. Former Military President, Ibrahim Babangida had described his government as saintly compared to successive administrations in terms of prevalence of corruption, just as former President Olusegun Obasanjo, on Monday, took a swipe at President Jonathan, accusing him among other things of squandering $55 billion crude oil savings left behind by his Administration. President Jonathan, who noted that his administration has performed more than the previous ones with the nation’s economy as the largest in Africa, said: “When we start campaigns, we will confront them with what we have done as a government, we will tell them what they did not do when they were heads of state. Some people want to still keep these children as shoe cleaners, we must lift them up. Our children should not be used as cannon folders. They should be allowed to move forward to be governors like us. “We have everything it takes to run an excellent and victorious campaign. Our great party has demonstrated to Nigerians that it is the party with the broadest appeal. We are the strongest and the biggest. We have engaged the people of Nigeria positively with people-friendly policies, which have moved Nigeria forward.” He continued: “We have sustained the democratic tradition. We have strengthened democratic institutions. We inherited a rather complex security challenge but we are waging a determined war against it. We are succeeding in preventing terrorists and insurgents from turning more of our communities into enclaves for their dastardly activities. “We remain fully committed to further empowering the security agencies to enable them win the war against terror. We have proven to the people that we are a party and a team that they can rely upon.

  Buhari
The All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has assured Nigerians that all corrupt politicians will end up in jail once he is elected into power. Buhari, who gave the assurance on Tuesday during the APC rally and the presentation of the party’s governorship flag to Umana Umana as its candidate in Akwa Ibom State in Uyo, said he would close all loopholes through which money was being siphoned out of the country. “When we come into power, anyone who steals Nigerian money will end up in Kirikiri Maximum Prisons. We are going to make sure that Nigeria’s wealth belongs only to Nigerians,” he said.
He decried the overdependence of Nigeria on oil, saying that the country would not have faced the economic downturn if the country had invested in agriculture. According to Buhari, Nigeria used to export tin and columbite but all of a sudden, it stopped producing and exporting these minerals with the belief that the country has oil. On the power sector, Buhari stated that many industries had shut down operation because of epileptic power supply. He noted that Nigerian producers were not able to compete in the international market because of huge cost of generating alternative power. Buhari, who was a former military Head of State, assured Nigerians that his government would create over three million jobs yearly to take care of the jobless youths. The Rivers State Governor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, who is also the Director General, Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation, said he was ashamed to read on the pages of newspapers a story credited to the Peoples Democratic Party that things had improved in Nigeria from 2011 onward. He added that governors decided that the excess crude money be shared because of the missing cash that was involved.
Amaechi said, “I was ashamed to read on the pages of newspapers, where the PDP said things had improved from 2011 till now. “Oil price used to be between $120 and $145 before now. Our savings used to be between $45 and $46bn. We had over $10bn to $20bn in excess crude. The reason why the governors asked that excess crude be shared was that after each meeting we had, if the money was $10bn, before we come back for another meeting, it would be $8bn. Who has taken the $2bn? We did not know. “When we discovered that our money was being taken away with reckless abandon without accounting, it was then we asked, ‘Oga, please share this money. You are not a bank. And if it were a bank, it would add more to the money.” Amaechi urged members of the party in the state to go to their units and educate the people. He asked the people to make sure that their votes count.

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