The
presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the
February 14 election, Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, promised Nigerians
gainful employment if elected, as the party’s research has shown that
rejuvenating farming and mining would ensure more jobs.
Buhari,
who spoke in Ilorin, Kwara State capital, when his campaign train got to
the state, also said that he would block all means of corruption in
Nigeria and use the resources to provide scholarship, qualitative
education, gainful empowerment and infrastructure development.
Once he got to Ilorin, Buhari went to the palace of the Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Zulu Gambari to pay him a courtesy visit.
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| Buhari at the palace of the Emir of Ilorin, Zulu Gambari |
“The
APC has identified these problems and wherever we go, we repeat these
fundamental problems Nigeria is going through, of insecurity, of the
depletion of the economy and corruption. From the airport to here, we
saw the faces of hundreds of youths and it is believed that 60 per cent
of the youths in Nigeria are unemployed whether they have finished
school or not,” the APC presidential candidate said at the palace.
“Our
talented children who don’t have opportunity to go to schools, whose
parents cannot afford to send them to schools, we will cooperate with
the local governments to have a scholarship system where talented
Nigerians could be identified and properly educated”.
In his
response, the Emir said: “General Buhari is not a visitor to Ilorin, he
has been associating with us, we have been associating with him in
Ilorin and the emirate and in fact the whole of Kwara State with his
renown with our son, General Tunde Idiagbon. They are like twins in
effect both in effect and outside office.”
“I worked with him
around 1976, he was then the governor of then North-eastern state
comprising now about six states and he was the coordinator to divide the
north east into three-Borno, Gongola and Bauchi. So he had to swear in
the Permanent Secretaries who had been deployed into these divisions. I
was lucky to be among one of them as Solicitor-General for Gongola.
Little did I know I would continue to meet him?
“I thank God that
I met him; he is a man of honour. The first time he realized I was in
Maiduguri was when I attended the council which he was presiding. And
then he asked the Secretary, ‘who is that young man, they said Zulu
Gambari from Ilorin’. He asked, ‘what is he doing here?’ Then General
said, ‘what is his rank?’ They said, ‘Senior State Counsel.’ He said,
‘That is not a rank, go and give him a title. Is there no other rank
there (in the judiciary)?’ They said there were Attorney-General,
Solicitor-General. He asked, ‘after that, what else?’ They said DPP, he
said, ‘then go and give him for the mere fact that he has come all the
way from Ilorin.’
“So he is a man of justice, he wants to do
justice. Nigeria, the whole country is looking forward to you to do
justice. You have a very heavy responsibility as you rightly said. To
get there is nothing but to be safely and attentively there. It is
almost dinosaur that he would get there having been there before but
your task is very heavy.”
The National Leader of APC, Asiwaju
Ahmed Bola Tinubu reminded Nigerians of the promise President Goodluck
Jonathan made to provide jobs for the unemployed youths when he asked
the Interior Minister Abba Moro to exploit money from poor Nigerians and
instead of jobs he provided deaths and nothing was done about it.
Tinubu was referring to the Immigration jobs scam, which led to the
death of about 18 applicants.
Tinubu said February 14, 2015 is a
golden opportunity for all Nigerians to change the destiny of this
country once and for all by voting for Buhari and his running mate,
Professor Yemi Osibajo, and indeed all the party’s candidates in order
to effect the much desired change.
The leader of APC in Kwara
state, Dr Bukola Saraki, excitedly said going by the unprecedented crowd
of party supporters, Kwarans had spoken that they are going to vote for
Buhari and all APC candidates.
