Thunderous Jubilation In The Entire Nigeria, As President Buhari Sends Powerful Message To Opposition Parties

Nigerians are excited as the country’s President, Muhammadu Buhari has revealed on Monday afternoon that unlike the elections that happens in previous administrations where votes were awarded to the winners, he was going to ensure the playing field during the 2019 elections were going to be level.

Buhari, who spoke at the Presidential Villa in Abuja when he received a delegation from the International Republican and National Democratic Institute, United States of America, led by Ambassador Linda-Thomas Greenfield, appreciated the concern of world’s premier country for stability in developing countries

 

Buhari stated, “I am glad you are here to assess our pre-election preparations. It reminds me of the visit by the then Secretary of State, John Kerry, before the 2015 polls. We appreciate the concern of America for stability in developing countries. Having run for President three times, ending up at the Supreme Court all three times, before God and technology made a way for me the fourth time, I know what it is to be cheated at the polls. What they used to do was just to award votes and tell anyone who was dissatisfied to go to court. But we won’t do that. I am prepared to give the opposition the opportunities I was not given in the past.”

He informed the visitors that he had directed the heads of all security agencies to be professional in their work and that the focus of the All Progressives Congress government that he led, remained to fight corruption, insecurity and put the economy on the path of full recovery.

 

In his words, “We have done fairly well in the areas we focussed on. We know how many local government areas in the North-East were under Boko Haram occupation before we came. That does not happen again, save for cowardly attacks, using young girls as suicide bombers. Other areas of security challenge like farmers/herdsmen clashes are receiving attention, and will be sorted out as much as possible.”

 

On not signing the Electoral Act, he said, “Time is against us. We are extremely vulnerable, and need to be careful that messages are not hijacked and figures tampered with, while being transmitted electronically.”

Earlier, Greenfield told Buhari that the delegation had met with various groups in the country, including the media, civil society and political parties and noted that the concerns raised by the groups were the partisan role of the security agencies during polls, the non-signing of the Electoral Bill and compromise by the Independent National Electoral Commission.