2023: President Buhari, Tinubu on same page – Senator Abu Ibrahim

journalists in Abuja, he called on President Muhammadu Buhari to change the Service Chiefs of Nigerian military as part of serious efforts to overcome the security crisis in the country.

Let me start by saying that right through President Obasanjo to Yar’Adua and Jonathan there is no government in Nigeria that you can compare to President Buhari in terms of project implementation and

innovation in governance. Some of the achievements include: Whistle blowing policy and the implementation of the single treasury account (TSA). This has helped the government to recover over N3trillion within the past four years. The Anchor Borrowers Programs substantially, has improved the local products of Agricultural products and revenues to farmers in about 16 different commodities especially rice and poultry.

There is total ban on rice importation and wheat whereby having about 5Million dollars daily saved from the budget. Government support for micro, small and medium scale enterprises with funding of about $2billion. 52 percent of this amount went to youths and women beneficiaries from the program between 2017 to date.

Payments of pension arrears of #54 billion to government agencies who retired 2010 to Airways, Delta and  Steel, Nitel, Biafra Police officers pardoned by Obasanjo regime in 2005. Loans to State governments who could not pay salaries of workers. Support investment programes in the oil/ gas sector through establishment of modular Refinery Initiative as well as removal of fuel subsidy, and many more achiements.

Nobody will tell you that APC is not in crisis but where there is crisis there must always be solutions to the problems. What is

important to me is that the two principal officers of this party, who formed APC, are my close associates. Both President Muhammadu Buhari and Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu are my leaders who can attest to the fact that I am one of the major few promoters of the party who sat down together with others to discuss the emergence of APC, starting from 2010 to 2013 when it was finally registered as a political party. As a matter of fact, when we started the discussion in 2010 we realized that it would be very difficult to have a meaningful result of a true merger before the 2011 elections. We, nevertheless, worked together towards 2011 elections without any concrete agreement. There was, therefore, no good result out of that mutual understanding. But after the 2011 elections we resumed our discussions culminating in a first major political parties’ merger in Nigeria with the coming

together of CPC, ACN, and the others. We were lucky enough to have everything in place before the 2015 election and the rest was the overwhelming defeat for PDP – the first of its kind in the political history of Nigeria. Now to answer your question specifically on the crisis in APC, I have seen a lot of misinformation on what is actually the position of relevance or prominence.  But what is important to me is the fact that the two principal officers of the party, President Muhammadu  Buhari and Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu have agreed to work together and rejig the party, reorganize it and reunite aggrieved individuals for the betterment of Nigeria under APC.

Obviously, if we have left things to stay the way we got to at the point of sacking the NWC, we are sure to have a serious crisis on our hands for 2023. For me there is a strong hope for greater success and progress of APC to come out of the present situation much stronger and healthy.

I am sufficiently aware of the deep crisis in APC leading to the political sack of APC government in Zamfara State as well as the lost of two other States to the opposition party after the last general election in 2019. In reality we seem to have lost our edge to PDP in terms of State control. Serious members of our party are therefore not happy over such development especially as 2023 political situation is unfolding. But what is important now is that the reconciliation committee, headed by Bisi Akande and the reorganization committee, headed by Yobe State Governor, will soon start working seriously in order to bring sanity into the whole situation. The two Committees are approaching and working together towards resolving the whole crisis more especially as all cases in court will be withdrawn.  I am therefore appealing to our party members to support and co-operate with the two committee members so as to achieve lasting solution to the crisis in the party. We must all embrace peace and harmony in order to forge ahead and sustain our leadership position both at the state and national levels. As a creator and leader of APC, I am sure President Buhari would want to leave a lasting legacy for this country and one of the greatest legacies for him to leave behind is to ensure that APC survive as a political party. Apart from COVID-19 health challenges, the major problem facing Nigeria today is insecurity of lives and properties of its citizens and APC government is failing to solve this problem.

I agree with you that our biggest challenge today in Nigeria is the security situation in the country. As a ruling party there is no way we can sustain our support base without dealing and resolving this security problem on our hands. I live and interact everyday with ordinary people within and outside my constituency and hear as well as I see many things when interacting with people both in the villages and in towns. Take COVID-19 for example, the people are no longer afraid of the disease because they know that there is a committee briefing Nigerians everyday and alerting them about the dangers of the disease. However, I am compelled to say that security situation is our major problem today and we should take the situation seriously to give Nigerians hope for survival. I am aware that the federal government had set up a committee headed by the Minister of defence with the IG Police, Minister of Internal Affairs and some Governors as members. The committee was given the responsibility to have a periodic assessment of security situation and report back to the federal government in order to come out with a positive solution to the problem. Speaking specifically for the North West where I come from, some people have come out to say that the security crisis is political. If this is true, this committee should have known by now and be able to alert the President of Nigeria accordingly. But sadly enough this has not happened.  It is obviously clear, therefore, that the situation in the North East and North West are different in nature. The North East problem, as far as we know, is caused by Boko-haram which is believed to have affiliation with ISIS and other terrorist organizations world-wide. Many people know the sources of funding and supply of arms and ammunition for this sect. However, the North West crisis is different because it is essentially a local banditry situation. Nigerian people should therefore know by now those who are behind this banditry if really it is political. But as a political leader from the area I am urging the federal government to tackle this crisis urgently with the seriousness it deserves because the situation there is an embarrassment to this government and unacceptable situation to the citizens of the area. Talking as an APC member and a Senator who represented them for the past fifteen years, it is clearly understood that the Buhari government has done very well in tackling infrastructural development programes and improving our transportation system all over Nigeria within the past five years. He has also brought many innovative changes and reforms into the governance of this country as well as tackling corruption problem in the country. But this security problem is destroying all the known achievements of his government. As a matter of fact you cannot go to the people in the area and talk on the issue of achievements of President Buhari without incurring their anger. It is as bad as that because the bandits have either destroyed their homes and properties or taken away their wives and children after raping them openly.

The people have now realized that they are living without peace and security and all the talk about Buhari achievements are meaningless to them. Personally, I visit my people regularly and I have heard their

complaints and suggestions on the crisis. As a politician and one of their leaders, I can make their feelings known to the authorities to act on their behalf and solve their problems. I am seriously worried

about the situation in the North West because, as politicians, we are losing our major support base for not providing solutions to their security problem. The President, who is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, must have been hearing and reading about the pathetic situation in the North West. The people are pleading for the change of service chiefs because it seems they cannot solve the crisis for them. It is not that they are incompetent but the fact is that they are unable to satisfy the yearnings of our people. If the service chiefs are changed it will be a better development for Nigeria.