Nigeria Now The Toast Of The International Community-Onu

He said in one year under President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives
Congress (APC) administration, Nigeria has become the toast of the
international community.

Onu said this when he paid a courtesy visit to the APC National Chairman,
Chief John Odigie-Oyegun at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja.

During the visit, the APC National Chairman stated that President
Muhammadu Buhari administration is very much oncourse to delivering
dividends of democracy to Nigerians. He said President Buhari
administration has removed impunity from the polity.

Odigie-Oyegun: “There is no question at all, President Muhammadu Buhari
administration is very much oncourse. These days they ask you what has the
President Buhari administration achieved in one year. People overlook that
fact that he stabilised the polity. We were virtually on the edge. The
trust that the people have on President and the party that he leads has
made a great difference. We can see it exemplified today. Hard as
conditions are, the ordinary man and woman of this nation backed the
president rather than the strike. That is trust and confidence in the
person of the president.

“I have no doubt in my mind that this is an administration that is in the
process of stabilizing the polity both economically and in terms of trying
to differentiate between right and wrong and institutionalising it in our
consciousness and also delivering the promise of a better tomorrow,
progress for the ordinary man or woman in the nation and generally
restoring hope to the lives of Nigerians.

“President Muhammadu Buhari administration has removed impunity from the
polity. With President Buhari, anybody who goes and dips his hand in the
public till knows that he will have his day with the judicial system and
be visited with the appropriate penalties and punishment.”

Odigie-Oyegun hailed the selfless effort of the minister in the process
that brought the President Buhari administration into office. “You
(Minister) are one of those who made tremendous sacrifice that brought the
President Buhari administration into office because you were leader of a
national political party. You had the vision, the selflessness to make the
kind of sacrifice that was called for.” The APC National Chairman said.

Onu was the National Chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP)
which merged with other progressive-minded parties to form the APC.

Earlier, the minister gave an account of achievements of President
Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in one year. He also commended the Chief
John Odigie-Oyegun-led APC for its contributions to the successes recorded
by the current government in the last one year.

Onu: “I want to commend the leadership of the party for the job they are
doing not just for the party but also for the nation. Most people don’t
realise it is not easy to transit from being in opposition to being in
government. To run a party in opposition is a little bit different from
running a party in government and the leadership under our highly
respected National Chairman has done very well in moving the party from
being an opposition party to being a party in government.

“For us in the executive arm of government, our major responsibility is to
make sure the promises which the president made to Nigerians before the
election and which he has as a man of honour and integrity continued to
make after being sworn in, is implemented. To work towards making sure
that Nigerians benefit from this administration. It is also important to
note that those promises Mr. President made are all derived from the
manifesto of the party. In essence, it is actually the manifesto of the
party that the president is implementing.

“The President has made remarkable achievements in many directions. The
first and most important is that we no longer have impunity in governance.
Before now, some in government believed they were above the law and could
act in any way without reference to the laws of the land. But President
Muhammadu Buhari has made sure that the rule of law is adhered to and all
those acts of impunity, arrogance of power are all now behind us.

“Secondly, before the President was sworn in, we are all witnesses to the
situation in the Northeastern part of the country. We had villages and
town falling into the hands of insurgents almost on a daily basis. Today,
we are so happy that all the territories previously under the control of
the insurgents are now under the effective control of the military. Our
brothers and sisters who were displaced, who had to live outside their
homes are now returning home. We know as the president has promised that
he will not rest until the very last of our abducted schoolgirls are
brought home in safety.

“Also, before Mr. President came into office, the image of our country was
in very bad shape to the point of Nigerians seeking the passport of other
countries to travel. We are all witnesses to what happened when we needed
badly to buy arms and ammunition for our soldiers. We tried all methods,
we couldn’t. We even decided to carry cash to buy arms and ammunition. But
today we are the toast of the international community. The image of our
country is soaring very high. All nations of the world now know that there
is change in Nigeria and a positive change for that matter.

“In the area of elections, the President has made sure that elections are
truly free and fair and this is to make sure that any person elected into
office will hold that position not by his own will or the will of a small
group of persons, but at the supreme will of the people. And this is very
significant in our march for democracy. Because if we don’t achieve that,
it will be very difficult for us to have the full benefit of enjoying the
benefits associated with democratic practice.

“In the area of the economy, we shouldn’t forget that about one half years
ago, the price of crude oil was over $100 dollars. But it came down to as
low as $28. The cost of oil production in Nigeria is one of the highest in
the world. So when the price of crude oil was falling, we were almost
getting to a level where even making profit was an issue. We can see that
if God did not make it possible for a man like President Muhammadu Buhari
to be in office, it would have been very difficult. It is the effect of
the poor management of the past that we are feeling. But the good news is
that President Muhammadu Buhari is determined to reverse all this and a
number of measures are going to be put in place to achieve this,
particularly in injecting enough capital projects in our national budget.
For the first time in many years, Nigeria will be spending as high as
thirty percent of the national budget on capital. This is money that will
help us grow and build our infrastructure for the future.

“Nigerians are aware that if APC had not been in government, the situation
in the country would have been totally untenable; it would have been a
situation we have never experienced.”