ABUJA —AHEAD of the February 16 presidential election, Jubril Al- Sudani being paraded as President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed fears over alleged new threats to the election via vote-buying by those he said looted the treasury in the previous administration.
Vanguard reports and addresses the impostor as President Mohammadu Buhari:
The general election in the country is starting on Saturday February 16 with the presidential and National Assembly elections. But President Buhari said reliable evidence gathered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, revealed that those who had looted Nigeria’s treasury, now with huge resources at their disposal, were planning to undermine the credibility of the election through vote buying.
The president also said it has not been easy journey for over three years Nigerians gave him the mandate to pilot the affairs of the country. However, the Campaign team of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, said President Buhari’s alarm of vote-buying amounted to self-indictment because only those in power now have the capacity to buy votes. Also the PDP said the Buhari Presidency reeked of corruption and could not be said to be fighting graft. In a statement he personally signed yesterday, the President urged Nigerians to participate massively in the forthcoming presidential election.
What Buhari said
Buhari said: “By way of their looting, the corrupt have powerful resources at their disposal, and they will use them. For when you fight corruption, you can be sure it will fight back.
“It even threatens to undermine February’s poll and – by extension – our democracy. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has raised concerns over laundered money being funneled into vote-buying.”
The President promised to end corruption in the country if given another mandate of four years and also promised to follow due process in ensuring that the fight against corruption was fought to the end, despite the resistance from those involved in graft.
He explained that following due process in the fight against corruption was necessary to ensure that allegations never took the place of evidence President Buhari, who noted that a policy that does not have fighting corruption at its core was destined to fail, said: Victory over corruption is difficult but not impossible. We must not flounder in our resolve.
“I know many Nigerians would like to see faster action. So do I. But so too must we follow due process and exercise restraint, ensuring allegation never takes the place of evidence.”
President Buhari noted that those who have criticised his administration’s anti-corruption drive were those who opposed its mission. “There is no doubt that this administration has changed the way we tackle corruption. Concrete progress has been made, but there is still much to do.
“The battle against graft must be the base on which we secure the country, build our economy, provide decent infrastructure and educate the next generation,’’ he said.
He said in the last three and a half years, he has tried to judiciously exercise the trust vested in him to combat the problems of corruption, insecurity and an inequitable economy, with corruption standing above the other two programmes.
The President further said that while the government pursues the anti-corruption war, those involved in it continue to device new means of evading the law. He said: “Once the enablers are let in – as they have been in the past – the greed of those they collude with grows. But as I have intensified our war on corruption, so we have found that corruption innovates to resist the law.
“This is not the sole domain of those Nigerians, but the international corruption industry, the unsavoury fellow-traveler of globalisation. “Corruption corrodes the trust on which the idea of community is founded, because one rule for the few and another for everyone else is unacceptable to anyone working honestly.”
Doors closed against corruption — Buhari President Buhari also said the government has succeeded in closing the doors at fraudulent persons who were yet desperate to open the gates of corruption with the intention of looting the national treasury.
“We have repatriated hundreds of millions of dollars stashed away in foreign banks. These funds have been transparently deployed on infrastructural projects and used to directly empower the poorest in the society.
“More is still to come from our international partners in France, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Yet the hundreds of billions taken out of the country for the best part of this century promise more. “We have secured high profile convictions, but greater cases remain. Lawyers table endless objections to obstruct court proceedings, whilst their clients hope it lasts until a ‘friendly’ President is voted into office.
“We must continue to tighten the legal framework and ensure the authorities have the investigative powers at their disposal to secure sentences. Only then will we begin to neutralise the advantages the corrupt have.”
It hasn’t been easy journey for me—Buhari President Buhari has said that it has not been easy journey for over threes Nigerians gave him the mandate to pilot the affairs of the country.
He said he has not taken the support for granted and has promised to continue to protect the interest of the people and deliver on his mandate. In a video message to Nigerians titled, “We will continue to work to protect your interest and deliver our mandate”, he requested for more support in the February 16 presidential election.
He said: “It’s been over three years since you gave me the mandate to oversee the affairs of our dear country. “It’s not been an easy journey but with sincerity of purpose, perseverance, dedication and most importantly support from individuals like you, we have made great progress. “Some of these achievements are visible for everyone to see, some are still in the works.
“I hereby humbly ask for your support again in the coming election to enable us to move to the next level and consolidate on the successes recorded in making our country a better place.
“I don’t take your support for granted. We will continue to work to protect your interest and deliver our mandate.”
Buhari’s comment self-indicting – Atiku Campaign Reacting to President Buhari’s allegation of threats to the polls via vote-buying by looters, Mr. Akin Osuntokun, spokesman of the Atiku Abubakar Campaign, said: “Unless it is another moment of his characteristic cognitive failure, then that statement has to amount to a case of self-indictment.
“Realistically speaking, who are those in the vantage position in Nigeria today to commit the malfeasance he is alluding to? “If this President has any self-awareness, he would not have accepted Adams Oshiomhole as the leader of his campaign for re-election.
If any decent person is accused with the kind of weighty and corroborative allegations levelled against Oshiomhole, he would have sued the accuser for defamation of character-rather than hiding and wishing away the allegations.
“There is even a monument to corruption visible from any part of Nigeria erected by this man in his village. Yet this is the company in which our anti-corruption President revels in.
“Is this not the same President who went to Kano to raise the hands of Ganduje in solidarity? And you remember the laughable cover-up the President was pushing for an alleged crime caught on video.
“He was actually suggesting that the video recording was manipulated by ‘technology’. Only God knows whether this is another signpost of another evil scheme they are planning to unleash.
“I hope he saw the Atiku campaign rally in Kano today (yesterday) in Buhari’s supposed stronghold? Does that suggest a candidate or party in need of buying votes? On the contrary, you witnessed the fiasco of Buhari’s campaign rally in Lagos yesterday (Saturday). That should tell you who will find the need to purchase votes.”
(Vanguard)
