Buhari berates past leaders for development failure

• Assures Nigerians in Diaspora he’ll not abuse their trust

President Muhammadu Buhari currently on a visit to London, United Kingdom, assured Nigerians in the diaspora that he will not abuse their trust and confidence.

The President receiving the Buhari Diaspora Support Organization in the UK led by Mr. Charles Efe Sylvester, said: “I am happy that people like you are here, on your own, defending the country. You have shown courage and sacrifice. I assure you that your confidence in us won’t be abused, we will do our best to justify it.”

Buhari maintained: “We will do our best to justify your trust in us, and that confidence won’t be abused.”

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He observed that Nigeria is endowed with tremendous human and natural resources, but lamented that “failure of some of the leadership we had in the past led to our not being able to capitalize on resources to improve the lot of the people.”

However, President Buhari was unlucky to be confronted by Nigerians in UK with mass protest at Abuja House in London on his arrival on Monday. The protesters had complained of wanton killings by Fulani herdsmen and seeming deliberate inaction of the Buhari administration to contain the killings. They had urged the president to protect human lives rather than protect cows. Thereafter, they expressed their opposition to Buhari’s declaration to seek re-election for second term.

Buhari told the Diaspora Support Group in the UK that wicked people plundered the country, “and kept Nigerians poor.” He argued: looking at the condition in which the current administration met the country, without savings and the economy badly vandalized, “we have not done too badly.”

The President remarked that the damage done to the Nigerian economy in the years of plunder was massive, and that government was doing its best to recover some of the loot.

He said, however, it was impossible to identify and recover all.

Buhari decried: “If they had used 50% of the money we made, when oil prices went as high as $143 dollars per barrel, and stabilized at $100 dollars with production at 2.1 million barrels per day for many years, Nigerians would have minded their businesses.

“You could almost grow food on our roads, as they were abandoned. The stealing was so much, and they were so inept that they could not even cover the stealing properly. I wonder how all those things could have happened to our country.”

He commended the Buhari Diaspora Support Organization for deciding to identify with the country, “when you could have stayed here, and being comfortable.”