Nigeria is broke, All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Gen. Muhammadu Buhari said yesterday.
“Many states could not pay their workers’ salary in December,” he said as he tongue lashed the Dr. Goodluck Jonathan administration for neglecting corruption and misgovernance to focus on his health.
The rumour of his ill-health, he said, is a desperate attempt to take the mind of Nigerians off the basic issues of corruption and misgovernance by the Dr. Goodluck Jonathan administration.
Addressing a news conference in Abuja, Gen. Buhari also said he had no problem with his certificates with which he contested elections under the guidelines provided by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on three occasions.
He argued that rather than address the problem facing the nation, which led to non-payment of workers’ salaries in December, the government was talking about the health of an individual.
Gen. Buhari said: “Vanguard reported that I was to jet out for medical check-up yesterday (Saturday) but here I am. I was in Nasarawa and Benue states yesterday (Saturday); tomorrow, I am going to be in two states. The day after tomorrow in two more states. I am doing two states per day.
“How they got the impression that I was sick, I do not know. Although I got cold, that did not stop me from going on with my schedule.
“I don’t know of this desperation. The issue we are telling Nigerians is that of corruption in this country and that in the last 16 years, PDP has literally destroyed this country.
“This is the issue and I don’t understand what my health has got to do with that one. I have been sick on daily basis? And documents have been put on paper, on tweeter that I am sick and ABUTH has said they are forged documents. This desperation is beyond my understanding.”
Asked to make a categorical statement on his health, Gen. Buhari jokingly asked the reporter: “How old are you? 50 years? I am telling you that if we go to the field, you would not last the time I will last in the field.”
On the controversy surrounding his certificate, Gen. Buhari said: “Why didn’t Nigerians ask before? I have contested elections three times under the same rules set by INEC where there is a basic education qualification you must have. I was allowed to contest all these elections because my certificate? were in order.
“There were individuals that wrote to the United States War College and the college answered them and it was published by some of your papers. Really, this desperation of misinformation that is being passed around will do nobody any good because our minds are being taken away from the serious issues of corruption and incompetence by the PDP.”
The APC candidate spoke also on the alleged fraud in the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) where he was chairman during the Abacha regime, “That one has been cleared. There is no fraud in PTF,” Gen. Buhari said, adding:
“There was an investigation and General Obasanjo has answered that question. He confirmed that there was an investigation and the report was brought to him and there was nothing on ground as far as my management and chairmanship of the PTF was concerned. So, what else can I say when the person who did the investigation because he was the Head of State has cleared me. What else can I say?”
Lamenting the state of the economy, he said: “Well, the country is broke. Many states could not pay their workers’ salaries. Even in December most families were hungry during Christmas because government could not pay their salary and yet, they are talking about an individual’s health instead of paying the people.”
Also yesterday, the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation (APCPCO) accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of circulating a scam medical report on Gen. Buhari.
A statement from the Directorate of Media and Publicity of the organization, signed by Mallam Garba Shehu, said it was ludicrous for the PDP to throw caution to the wind in its “shameless” effort to pull wool over the eyes of Nigerians because of their rising desire for change of guards at the federal level.
The statement, which was given to The Nation in Abuja, directed the attention of Nigerians to the glaring errors on the letterhead of the paper on which the purported medical report was written, wrongly identify the institution as Ahmadu Bello Teaching Hospital instead of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), as the Zaria-based teaching hospital is known.
The statement reads: “The attention of the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation has been brought to the circulation of a fake medical record of General Muhammadu Buhari.
“We are able to track the circulation of the post on a social media platform and we know that the information emanated from the Facebook handle of one of Governor Ayo Fayose’s aides.
“It is noteworthy that the authorities at the Ahmad Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH) has given a clean bill on General Buhari’s health status. It is also noteworthy for Nigerians to understand that the PDP will stop at nothing to cast aspersion on the person of General Buhari.
“We knew that the PDP would become unbridled at a point in its desperation to avert the defeat coming its way in the countdown to the February 14 presidential election, but to anticipate that the PDP would go as dirty as spreading falsehood on an individual’s state of health could not have been imaginable.
“What is important is that Nigerians know today that our country is not healthy. They know that the PDP has driven the country to a near state of comatose. Our national security is very unhealthy and our national economy is right now gasping for breath from the stranglehold of the PDP.
“It is almost as if official corruption and impunity are matters of state policy in the management of our national economy under the President Goodluck Jonathan administration.
“That is why a great number of Nigerians yearn for change. Nigerians want a change from the clueless and directionless management of our security and our economy. Nigerians made a call on General Buhari to come on this rescue mission. They called on him because they know he is as fit as a fiddle to fix our unhealthy economy and the insecurity that has consumed a large region of our land.”
In another statement, Shehu, said the seemingly “exhausted and frustrated” ruling PDP cannot hoodwink the public in its “sickening” attempt to tarnish the towering moral stature of its presidential candidate by dredging up a discredited report.
The statement said: “President Obasanjo, who set up this panel to probe Buhari’s tenure at PTF, discovered something shocking from the work of the panel”.
He recalled that after reviewing the PTF report, former President Obasanjo directed the relevant authority to go after those indicted by the report, giving Buhari a clean bill.
Shehu explained that it was common knowledge to Nigerians that the Interim Management Committee was sacked by former President Obasanjo in March 2000 for alleged incompetence, amidst charges of serious abuse of public trust. Several members of that committee were indicted and made to refund hundreds of millions of naira of public funds, which they illegally took from the PTF.
He said anyone under the illusion that it could use “a rotten report to smear Gen. Buhari must be living in fantasy”, adding that these “desperate tactics” would only amount to disservice to President Jonathan and his party, the PDP.
He advised the Jonathan administration to focus its energy and attention on how to help give the country a new lease of life in the face of grim prospects on the economic front instead of wasting time on the futile efforts to smear the APC candidate.
Shehu reiterated that the PDP administration lacked the credibility to throw stones at Gen. Buhari, who is “by all accounts more credible and trusted” in the eyes of Nigerians.
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