I’ll work harder in my last lap ― Buhari

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has promised Nigerians that he would work harder in his last tenure to satisfy their yearnings.

He gave the assurance on Wednesday at the presidential villa, Abuja when he hosted the northern socio-cultural group, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), on a congratulatory visit.

“This is my last lap and I will try to work even harder than I did in my first tenure. I very much appreciate your coming here to congratulate me,” he said.

In therefore assuring that he would not disappoint, Buhari added: “I assure you that I will not let you down, I will do my best and I will pray to God that my best will be good enough,” he said.

He observed that the use of technology contributed a lot to his emergence as President, having made three unsuccessful attempts.

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“Buhari added: I was defeated three times and I went to Supreme Court three times and failed three times. But God and technology helped me. With the Permanent Voter Cards PVCs, the votes of ordinary Nigerians really counted.

“You know it, before now, they used to sit down and allocate whatever votes they wanted to the various constituencies and say whoever disagrees with the results should go to court. When people are struggling to get what to eat, where will they have the money to hire senior lawyers to defend them in court? God has his own way of solving problems and we thank him that the technology is finally here.”

In his remark earlier, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of ACF, Adamu Fika, thanked President Buhari for responding positively to some of the demands made by the group when it visited him a few years ago.

He recalled that in 2015, a similar delegation of ACF visited and congratulated him following his victory at the Presidential elections held earlier that year.

Fika said: “A year later, May 2016, you were kind enough to grant an audience to another delegation of the Forum. On that occasion, the delegation, led by late Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule, Danmasanin Kano drew attention to projects of concern to the North and of benefit to Nigeria at large. The projects included the Baro Dry Port, the Mambilla Hydropower, self- sufficiency in agricultural produce, road construction and rehabilitation, and above all oil and gas exploration.

“It is pleasing to note that since then, the Baro dry port has been commissioned, while all other projects have been reactivated and now being implemented.

“We pray that those organs of Government charged with the responsibility for the Implementation will double their efforts to ensure that these projects are executed fully to their logical conclusion within a reasonable time,” he said.

Fika, who explained that the visit was purely congratulatory, appealed for another opportunity for ACF to visit the President in future to enable it to discuss issues of concern with the president.