The patience of Nigerians has been overstretched beyond limit and it is unfortunate that its leaders have continued to turn a blind eye to the obviously dangerous state of the nation, National Leader of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Muhammadu Buhari has said.
Buhari stated this on Saturday during the national convention of his party to adopt the new All Progressive Congress (APC) in preparation for the 2015 general elections. He observed that the country has reached a situation where the people must either take power from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or allow it to crumble.
Bigwigs of other opposition parties who attended the event include National Chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Chief Bisi Akande; Chief Audu Ogbeh; Musa Gwadabe; Dr. Yakubu Lame; Governors Raji Fashola of Lagos and Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun; former Governors Achike Udenwa, Segun Osoba and Senator Chris Ngige; National Publicity Secretary of the ACN, Alhaji Lai Mohammed; Senator Ahmed Sani; Yariman Bakura of the ANPP, and Governor Rochas Okorocha (All Progressive Grand Alliance) of Imo State.
“I would like all of us here and across the country to reflect on the seriousness of the security situation in the country today,” Buhari said.
“Some areas of the nation are virtual war zones in a country supposedly at peace. Whole local governments in some states in the North East are no-go areas to representatives of constituted authority. Marauders of every description armed to the teeth with all manner of sophisticated armaments roam the national landscape with total and murderous impunity. The patience of this nation and the various communities within it has been severely tried and stretched to its limits and there is no end in sight.”
Addressing the crowd further, Buhari lamented that anarchy is fast closing in on many sections of the country and the Federal Government has not demonstrated enough understanding of the situation or the competence to check it.
“The nation is hopelessly adrift. But if we are to survive, this vicious circle of violence that has engulfed this nation must be brought to an end; and we implore the National Assembly to take the lead in this quest for peace,” he said.
“I am sure everybody in this gathering will join me in expressing sympathy for, and solidarity with, the good people of Borno, Yobe, Kano, and now, Nasarawa and Benue states on their sufferings and travails.”
He advised that Nigerians must explore every opportunity to save the country and described the convention as a historic moment, as several different political parties have resolved to come together to change Nigeria for the better and stop “the mindless drift of the last 14 years.
“We must understand and accept that we are here gathered to make history or forever stand accused and condemned by it.
“We must seize this moment that calls for patriotism and sacrifice-it is time to sacrifice everything-time, resources, ambition and ego-for the greater good. We should carry this process through to a successful conclusion, and leave our legacy and foot-prints on the history of Nigeria.”
He added that the government has failed in almost everything, saying there is insecurity everywhere, spiraling lawlessness all over the country, widespread and rising poverty and unemployment across the length and breadth of the country, complete and total decline in the quality of social services and an irremediable dilapidation in the nation’s socio-economic infrastructure across board.
“There is an unprecedented fall in the nation’s standard of living and an astronomical rise in the standard of dying. In short, today, there is nothing going right; and we have become a nation in which nothing works as it should, that is, if it works at all.
“When they said they have what they call a Transformation Agenda, we didn’t understand, but we now know better; because, within the space of three years, they have transformed the country into a veritable wilderness, where everything that should work, doesn’t; where everything that can get broken, has.
“They promised to give the nation credible elections; they couldn’t deliver. They promised to fight corruption, they couldn’t deliver. They promised to stop the insurgency, and they couldn’t deliver. This nation is witness to the fact that whenever we promised, we delivered.
“And today, I promise you most solemnly that we shall confront and eliminate corruption in the electoral process. We shall confront and eliminate corruption in the judicial process; and we shall most assuredly confront and eliminate it in the conduct of government business. We intend to provide a government of different quality and tone to the people of Nigeria, one that will tackle the problem of insecurity, solve the perennial issue of incessant power failure, arrest the shameful deterioration in the standard of education, confront the decline in agricultural production head-on, and stop the collapse of commerce and industry.”
