Remi Adefulu
The convener, Re–elect Buhari Movement (RBM), a group drumming support for President Muhammadu Buhari’s second term, Emmanuel Umohinyang cut his legal teeth under the late legal icon, Chief Gani Fawehinmi. He speaks on the Buhari administration, saying that the president deserves another term.
Why do many Nigerians seem to be divided over President Buhari’s second term ambition? I think we shouldn’t make much noise about his declaration. He has the right to contest for a second term under our constitution.
When people are making such noise, I think it is perhaps out of fear that the president enjoys massive support from Nigerians. Those who are making this noise are the elite, and in most cases, these people don’t vote. Those who vote are the Nigerians you find on the streets. Some of these elite don’t even have voters card.
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Don’t forget also that we have a new sheriff in town who has decided to do things differently for the benefit of all, so you don’t expect these people who have been the beneficiaries of an ugly system in the past to be happy about it.
Is British Prime Minister Theresa May’s comment that Nigerians are the poorest worldwide not in tune with the position of the opposition?
It took the children of Israel about 420 years to live in Egypt, the land of slavery. When God decided to take them out of the camp of slavery; it was not overnight.
Don’t forget that the Prime Minister’s position was not an indictment of the government. Poverty structure in Nigeria was made over the years. What government has done now is to try to resurrect the people. So, it is not an issue for this government, rather, it is this government that has shouldered the responsibility of addressing the crass poverty in the country.
The rich will always want the Wall between the rich and the poor to remain, but this government has come to demolish those walls.
You will definitely have some opposition from the system, so the description by the British Prime Minister is in order, and the government to the glory of God, has been doing all it can to bring as many Nigerians as they can out of poverty through the Social Intervention Fund which some people have criticised.
The description by the Prime Minister is not an attack on government. We should credit the government for what it has done. Look at the revolution going on in the Agricultural sector. Looking at government economic government that has shouldered the responsibility of addressing the crass poverty in the country.
Politically speaking, don’t you think there is no difference between the APC and PDP?
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I think I must correct an impression. I am not a member of the APC I’m only a strong and die-hard supporter of Buhari. Having said that, politicians will always be politicians and that is why I think we need to tinker with our laws.
We should make it a little difficult for people to cross-carpet from one political party to the other. We must also acknowledge that what is uppermost to the average politician in Nigeria is personal ambition, not necessarily people’s interest, but when they are moving they say my people say I should move.
I think what we should do is to look at our constitution and tinker with it such that it will make it very difficult for someone to move from a political party to the other.
President Buhari is perceived as being slow to react to important issues, is this not a minus? It is novel to criticise public officials, not necessarily the president. The very minute you set your feet into the ring, you have become a public property, but what we have advocated is that you criticise constructively, bring ideas.
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If the government is doing well, praise the government, if the government is not doing well criticise, but when all manner of people wake up from the wrong side of the bed and begin to say things that does not have basis, either morally or legally, then the essence of being a critics is gone. You have just made yourself a market critic.
Mostly, these are people who benefited from defective structures in the past. This government has made it clear that stealing is corruption, so that consciousness is already there. From the massive wealth, these people have acquired in the past, you don’t’ expect
these people to sit down and fold their arms.
They will try to throw up all they have to make sure they bring the government down, but I can tell you that they won’t succeed because Nigerians are with the government. Nigerians will see to it that this government is re-elected in 2019.