President Muhammadu Buhari has restated his determination to continue to fight for a united Nigeria, noting that he was involved in the struggle to keep the country one during the civil war.
President Buhari who stated this in his Democracy Day address at the Eagle, Abuja on Wednesday, emphasised that the country’s strength was in its people. He pointed out that what the country needed to achieve development was to get its act together, promising to consolidate on the progress recorded in his first tenure.
He regretted the growing rate of kidnapping and banditry in the country, attributing it to “decades of neglect and corruption,” even as he accused certain political leaders of inciting some of the violence for political gain.
Part of the problem, he said, is climate change which according to him, has led to increasing desertification and the drying of the Lake Chad. He promised to use the African Union to galvanise action towards solving the challenges.
Buhari stated that terrorism is a global phenomenon that needed global effort to tackle while noting that his administration has in the last four years, degraded Boko Haram as the terror group holds no territory presently. He recalled that before the onset of his administration, Boko Haram was holding up to 18 local governments.
The President said he will continue strengthen democratic institutions. He said he has in the last four years, given the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) the freedom to discharge its responsibilities.
He said he provided the electoral body with everything it required to conduct free and fair polls, pointing out that “except for pockets of violence, the 2019 election was generally free and fair.”
Buhari thanked Nigerians for voting for him, especially those he said have “consistently voted for me.”
The president vowed to deal decisively with corrupt individuals, insisting that nobody will be allowed to hold the country to ransom by appropriating the people’s common patrimony, even as expressed his determination to deal with those “inciting innocent people to violence.”
The high point of his speech was his renaming of Abuja National Stadium to MKO Abiola Stadium in honour of the late MKO Abiola believed to have won the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election and in whose honour Democracy Day was moved from May 29th to June 12.
