President-elect Muhammadu Buhari said yesterday that there won’t be quick fixes following 16 years of rot.
He urged Nigerians to temper their expectations from his administraton due to take office on May 29, “with some justice”.
Gen. Buhari told a delegation of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), led by first and Second Republic Minister Alhaji Maitama Sule, who visited him at the All Progressives Congress (APC) campaign secretariat in Abuja, that his administration will inherit a huge decay.
“The biggest message is to try and persuade the people that it is not possible to change the state of affairs now. It took 16 years and those 16 years, most of you know it better than me; Nigeria earned revenue more than what it earned from 1914 till then.
“You know that we used to have Nigeria Airways, Nigerian Shipping Line, Nigerian Railways. Where are they now? Where is the infrastructure? Consider what we earned between then and now and what we earned in-between and what is on ground. That is how efficiently the PDP managed Nigeria in the last 16 years.
“Now we have invariably inherited all the problems, especially in the Northeast. I am sure that you have heard or seen the children recovered from the Sambisa Forest. Only the children and women are remaining while all the able-bodied men have been gotten rid of somehow.
“Some have been taken to as far as Adamawa State to be resettled. A generation has been denied education and health care, infrastructure has gone.
“You can imagine what is happening in the high seas where up to 400,000 barrels of crude oil which we rely on is stolen everyday with the full cooperation of those who are supposed to protect it.
“The crude price has gone down and 90 per cent of foreign exchange we rely on come from that. So, you have to convince your constituencies that we have virtually arrived at the wrong time and that they have to tamper their expectation with some justice towards the leadership.
“I think this has to be discussed, especially in the churches and mosques. It is the quickest way to communicate this to the ordinary people. Continue to remind them of all the things I said in all the states I visited.
Nation