A former Governor of Kwara State, Bukola Saraki, is a
stalwart of All Progressives Congress, APC, and member of the Nigerian
Senate, representing Kwara Central Senatorial District.
In this interview with PREMIUM TIMES’ Musikilu Mojeed, Festus Owete and Adebayo Hassan, he says President Goodluck Jonathan stands no chance of winning the forthcoming election. Mr. Saraki says the president’s inability to deal with insecurity, bad economy, and corruption, has improved the popularity of Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Excerpts:
PT: There is still the issue that Tony Blair did not meet Muhammadu Buhari in London. How do you convince Nigerians that your candidate is not in hospital in the United Kingdom?
Saraki: That’s not true at all. He had the meeting on Saturday. He has the speech he (gave) at Chatham House on Thursday and I think he is also meeting APC in diaspora and a few other schedule. He will return to start campaign again on Monday.
PT: Still, why is Mr. Buhari away at this time?
Saraki: Because of the postponement. Even before February 14, he was meant to travel out to the United States. You know, there was a time he was supposed to address CSIS. So, since the election was postponed, we told the campaign council to redesign a new time table. So, there is a break. You can see it all over (Nigeria). It’s not just APC that’s using this period to take a break and do other things.
PT: Meanwhile, President Jonathan has been going around Nigeria, campaigning.
Saraki: I’ll go back to Jonathan. Let me finish with ours. So General Buhari just used the opportunity to travel out of the country because before now, the international community had been saying, “We have not met your candidate; we haven’t engaged him” et cetera. And we said, why don’t we do a visit to the UK for few days to engage the international community and come back to continue campaign.
Yes, I am aware that the president has been moving around. He was in the South-West for a whole week meeting with royal fathers and other persons. And it coincided with the time we were hearing PDP wanted to be buying PVCs. They want to bring money into the game. I think PDP are missing the point. They really don’t understand that Nigeria is not the country that it was a few years back. Now, Nigerians are just determined they want a new country and want to go a new direction. We saw it in our primaries. If it was money, Buhari would not have won. With that experience, we have seen Nigerians are now totally different. They will bring the money, spend all the money but that perception that everybody can be bought is wrong. And by March 28, PDP will see, sadly for them but good for the country, Nigerians have opted for change. So when you say they are moving around, it’s more or less like money is moving around.
read more
In this interview with PREMIUM TIMES’ Musikilu Mojeed, Festus Owete and Adebayo Hassan, he says President Goodluck Jonathan stands no chance of winning the forthcoming election. Mr. Saraki says the president’s inability to deal with insecurity, bad economy, and corruption, has improved the popularity of Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Excerpts:
PT: There is still the issue that Tony Blair did not meet Muhammadu Buhari in London. How do you convince Nigerians that your candidate is not in hospital in the United Kingdom?
Saraki: That’s not true at all. He had the meeting on Saturday. He has the speech he (gave) at Chatham House on Thursday and I think he is also meeting APC in diaspora and a few other schedule. He will return to start campaign again on Monday.
PT: Still, why is Mr. Buhari away at this time?
Saraki: Because of the postponement. Even before February 14, he was meant to travel out to the United States. You know, there was a time he was supposed to address CSIS. So, since the election was postponed, we told the campaign council to redesign a new time table. So, there is a break. You can see it all over (Nigeria). It’s not just APC that’s using this period to take a break and do other things.
PT: Meanwhile, President Jonathan has been going around Nigeria, campaigning.
Saraki: I’ll go back to Jonathan. Let me finish with ours. So General Buhari just used the opportunity to travel out of the country because before now, the international community had been saying, “We have not met your candidate; we haven’t engaged him” et cetera. And we said, why don’t we do a visit to the UK for few days to engage the international community and come back to continue campaign.
Yes, I am aware that the president has been moving around. He was in the South-West for a whole week meeting with royal fathers and other persons. And it coincided with the time we were hearing PDP wanted to be buying PVCs. They want to bring money into the game. I think PDP are missing the point. They really don’t understand that Nigeria is not the country that it was a few years back. Now, Nigerians are just determined they want a new country and want to go a new direction. We saw it in our primaries. If it was money, Buhari would not have won. With that experience, we have seen Nigerians are now totally different. They will bring the money, spend all the money but that perception that everybody can be bought is wrong. And by March 28, PDP will see, sadly for them but good for the country, Nigerians have opted for change. So when you say they are moving around, it’s more or less like money is moving around.
read more
0 comments:
Post a Comment