Singapore News Channel, Singapore News Network

Kungiyar Dattawan Arewa Initiative (KDAI), a group of northern elders, has endorsed President Muhammadu Buhari’s reelection bid.

Aliyu Wamakko, senator representing Sokoto north; Paul Tarfa, retired major-general; and Sani Daura, former minister of agriculture; Abdullahi Adamu, senator representing Nasarawa west; and Paulen Tallen, former deputy governor of Plateau state; are members of KDAI.

Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, Tarfa, convener of KDAI, said they decided to endorse Buhari after “a long and fruitful consultation with our members from all parts of the north.”

The retired major-general said in three years, the All Progressives Congress (APC) government has been able to tackle corruption.

“We have made this choice after a deep reflection in what President Buhari stands for in the history, politics, social and moral life of Nigeria at this time,” he said.

“In the last three and a half years since he took over as president of this country, President Buhari and his administration waged a relentless fight against corruption in all aspects of our national life.

“That is why Nigerians should accord him another four years in the office in order to push forward with the fight.”
Tarfa said Buhari has succeeded in degrading the Boko Haram insurgents.

“A major achievement of the Buhari administration for which we in the north are justly proud of is in the agricultural sector, which is the mainstay of our economic life in northern Nigeria,” he said.

“The TraderMoni initiative and other Social Investment Programme of the administration have greatly helped small scale traders, artisans and the unemployed to improve their lots.

“We are happy and proud that President Muhammadu Buhari has been just and fair to all parts of the country and we are sure that he will continue to do so if he is given the mandate to continue in office.”

The cable

President Muhammadu Buhari said it was his government’ s duty to imprison those who corruptly enriched themselves with the country ’ s wealth.

The President said on Saturday at the presidential rally of the All Progressives Congress in Lagos that if re – elected , he would continue to focus on the promises he made
 2015 .

“I assure you that the promises we made in 2015 , based on which you elected us , we ’ ve made tremendous progress and I have mentioned through others what the administration is doing on security , economy and fighting corruption, ” he said.

The President vowed to eventually prosecute those who had yet to return Nigeria’ s stolen wealth and imprison them.

He said, “I assure you , whoever is entrusted ( with public property ), his primary responsibility is to account for it .

“If the proper thing is not done, we will eventually get a hold of them , take away what they have stolen and get them in prison .

“This is our duty , this is our responsibility and I assure you we will continue to do it . ”

Buhari said he looked forward to the people’ s support for his re – election .

Punch

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing , Mr Babatunde Fashola, threw a jibe at former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Saturday when he said President Muhammadu Buhari doesn ’ t have time to write letters.

Obasanjo has been known for writing letters of criticism to his successors, including Buhari on multiple occasions.

Speaking at the All Progressives Congress presidential rally in Lagos , Fashola said , “Mr President , I have spoken to our people extensively in Yoruba before you arrived .

“I have delivered your message and the message of your government and our party to them – that ‘ Next Level ’ means jobs, from Mambilla , to the road projects, to the factories , roads from Apapa all the way to Oworonshoki …”

The minister added , “I have told them that you don ’ t have time to write letters ; you get the job done. I welcome you , especially because this is my own village . This is my own ‘ Daura ’ in Lagos . This is Surulere.

 This is the first city , and this is where , historically , the first dollar was devalued four years ago. ”

Punch

Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has described ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo as the greatest election rigger in the history of Nigeria.

Tinubu said this at the presidential rally of the ruling party in Lagos on Saturday.

“When he was asked Umaru Musa Yar’Adua admitted that the election which brought him into office was rigged,” he said.

“Who conducted that election?” he asked and the crowd chorused “Obasanjo”

Continuing, Tinubu said “Obasanjo is the greatest election rigger in this country.”

He also accused Obasanjo of truncating the plan to have steady power in Lagos and by extension the country.

Tinubu lamented that major multinational companies like Dunlop and Michelin would not have left the country if the Obasanjo government had tackled the challenge of unstable power.

“Then, Obasanjo came. We taught them that there was no other way to have business evolution and revolution in this country without steady power supply,” he said.

“I introduced independent generating power projects in Badagry. What did he do? He and Atiku opposed it. I went to court. Who was my lawyer in court? Osinbajo. I won in court and we started generating 300MW, the first state to do it.

“Imagine, that was in 1999. If Nigeria was dedicated to electricity generation, you would not see Dunlop and Michelin move out of the country.

 Look at our roads, look at the vehicular density in Lagos alone.”

The cable

The South- East Youth Coordinator of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, Innocent Ojike has said the Igbos will regret if they don ’ t vote for President Muhammadu Buhari in next Saturday ’ s poll .

He stated this on Saturday at a press conference in Awka, the Anambra State capital.

He said the Igbos would lose in the political equation of the country if they failed to vote massively for the APC , stressing that Buhari would win .

He said the poll would determine what the southeast would be in the political chessboard of the country in 2023 .

He noted that Ndigbo made “a costly mistake in 2015 general elections ” by failing to vote for Buhari , adding that the Igbo should not allow the situation to repeat itself in the 2019 general elections .

He expressed regret that the voting strength of the South- East geopolitical was the lowest in the country .

He said, ” The Igbo nation should learn to collaborate with other zones to achieve their aim of producing Nigerian President in 2023 .

“All hands should be on deck to achieve this noble objective , since the zone cannot do it alone.

He enjoined Buhari to facilitate the creation of an additional state , should he win next week ’ s poll .

The Fulani Youths Association of Nigeria (Jonde Jam) has promised to deliver 11 million  votes to President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress in  the February 16  presidential poll.

The organisation, according to a statement, made the promise in  Abuja when their national executive committee paid a visit to the national headquarters of the APC Women and Youth Presidential Campaign Team headed by Aisha Buhari.

The youths were received by the Chairman of the Central Working Committee of the campaign team, Buba Marwa.

While justifying their support for Buhari, the  National President of Jonde Jam, Alhaji Maikano Abdullahi, said their decision to back the President for a second term was based on his antecedents and integrity.

He said, “We realised that two Fulani men  are running in the presidential election, but in our deliberations, we found President Buhari to be more suitable and qualified. He is a leader with no foreign account,  he has been governor and oil minister but has never stolen a kobo from the public treasury. We see him as a talakawa (commoner) like us and this is why we zeroed in on him as our candidate.”

Abdullahi added, “We  will  be going back to our General Assembly where we will share kola nuts  to  seal  our decision to deliver 11 million votes as our  support for Buhari.”

But Marwa urged the group to  deliver more than the 11 million votes for the President.

Other leaders of the APC Women and Youth Presidential Campaign team, who joined Marwa to receive the  over 100 Fulani youths,  included former Inspector-General of Police, Suleiman Abba; Maj Gen Alkali,Binta Muazu; Ms. Juliet Ibeku, Pauline Tallen, and Justice Dodo and General Abubakar Alkali among others.

The Maize Farmers Association of Nigerian (MAAN) has said that the association will mobilise it’s 5 million registered members to vote for President Muhammad Buhari in next Saturday elections.

Speaking at a Press Conference a short while ago in Abuja, the National President of the association, Alhaji Bello Abubakar said that the association has recorded significant progress under the current administration adding that the President deserves another term.

“From the year 2015-2018, MAAN has increased from about 1.2 million to 5 million members across the country. Within the first year of participating in the present administration agricultural programmes, we have been able to acquire 128 numbers of tractors with full farming implement.” he told journalists at the event.

Alhaji Annor stressed that the association cannot ignore the president’s achievement in the agricultural sector as “one good term deserves another.”

“Permit me to give you good news that the maize production has increased from 15 million metric tonnes in 2015 to 20million metric tonnes in 2018. This great leap in production was achieved through provision of good, high yielding and farm inputs through the CBN Anchor Borrower Programme” he said.

Daily Trust

 The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said the commitment of President Muhammadu Buhari to the welfare of Nigerians spurred him to end the 14-year suffering of the pensioners and former workers of the defunct Nigeria Airways.

 The Minister made the remarks in Lagos on Friday while addressing the former workers of the Nigeria Airways, who staged a rally in support of the re-election of President Buhari.

 “The Administration’s commitment to the welfare of Nigerians has led President Muhammadu Buhari to end the 14-year wait and suffering of the 5,996 former staffers of Nigeria Airways, who have started receiving payment of their pension arrears and other benefits from the Federal Government.

 “It is noteworthy that since the liquidation of Nigeria Airways, successive Administrations have failed to settle the ex staffers, leading to untold suffering and loss of human dignity by the affected people,” he said.

 Alhaji Mohammed said apart from the former workers of the defunct Nigeria Airways, other group of former workers who have benefitted from the people-oriented policy of the Buhari Administration are the former Biafran policemen, former workers of the Aladja Delta Steel
 Company and former NITEL workers, whose years of suffering and neglect came to an end.

 He said the pro-poor policies of the government, has benefited many Nigerians, listing the Conditional Cash Transfer which has benefitted 300,000 families and the home-grown school feeding system, under which 9.3 million school children are being fed daily.

 The Minister also said 500,000 graduates have been employed under the N-Power Programme while about 1.2 million people are covered by the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme and the TraderMoni.

 Alhaji Mohammed, who thanked the ex-workers of the Nigeria Airways for demonstrating their support for President Buhari,

Protocols

I am delighted to welcome you all to today’s signing ceremony, which is another landmark in our journey to industrialisation of Nigeria and create jobs for our people.

2.     When we committed to the implementation of the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan and launched our Economic Recovery and Growth Plan to fast track implementation, we had a vision of Nigeria as the pre-eminent manufacturing hub in Sub-Saharan Africa and a major exporter to our immediate West African sub-region, the rest of Africa and indeed the World.

3.     Special Economic Zones have an important role to play in our scheme. Special Economic Zones (SEZ) offer investor-friendly incentives, up-to-date infrastructure and ease of doing business in order to attract local and foreign investment and have been used as a catalyst for rapid and inclusive industrialisation, job creation and diversified export earnings in countries with exemplary development records.

4.     Under my direct supervision, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment is implementing Project MINE – Made in Nigeria for Exports – as a Presidential special priority intervention using Special Economic Zones to achieve the objectives of: boosting manufacturing’s share of GDP to 20%, generating $30bn in annual export earnings; and creating 1.5 million new jobs all by 2025. In order to achieve these ambitious objectives, we are implementing a comprehensive plan including but not limited to the following:

a.   We have set up the Nigeria SEZ Investment Company Limited as a vehicle for participating in Public Private Partnerships involving Federal and State governments and local and foreign private investors. This company will develop new Special Economic Zones all over the country, offering advanced infrastructure and facilities at competitive costs.  The projects in the pilot phase include Enyimba Economic City, Funtua Cotton Cluster and Lekki Model Industrial Park.

b.   We are inviting experienced Special Economic Zone developers and operators to partner with us to upgrade the Federal Government owned Free Trade Zones in Calabar and Kano, to offer first-class standards of infrastructure and facilities.  Whilst we await the completion of the process of bringing in these investors, the Federal Executive Council has approved the award of contracts in excess of N19.45 billion for the needed investment in Calabar and Kano Free Trade Zones and work is currently ongoing.  This is the highest amount of capital investment ever in the history of these zones.

c.   We have allocated substantial funds to upgrade the capabilities of management and the systems in the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority, to strengthen it as a regulator of our Special Economic Zones.

d.   We are allocating substantial resources to the provision of “outside the fence” infrastructure to ensure that our Special Economic Zones are connected to global, regional and domestic markets.

e.   We are reviewing our incentive framework to ensure competitiveness relative to the other countries with which we are in the race to attract export oriented global manufacturing investment.

f.    We will extend the early successes we have achieved in Ease of Doing Business to the areas critical to globally competitive export-oriented manufacturing operations.

5.     Today, we are here to witness the signing of investment agreements, following which the Nigeria SEZ Investment Company Limited will become fully operational.  I will like to use this opportunity to thank our investment partners – Africa Export and Import Bank (AFREXIM); Africa Finance Corporation (AFC); Bank of Industry (BOI); Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA); and the African Development Bank (AFDB) for their strong demonstrations of support for this important initiative.

6.     Thank you all for coming and may the Almighty God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.