The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) will lead the military to the North-East to fight the Boko Haram insurgents if voted into power on February 14, his running mate, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN), said on Monday. Continue..
Osinbajo expressed concern over deepening insecurity in the country and accused President Goodluck Jonathan of reneging on his promise to protect Nigerians.
Fielding questions from a group of youths at a town hall meeting in Abuja, the APC vice presidential candidate said Buhari as President and Commander-In-Chief would lead by example.
The town hall meeting held under the aegis of Act Now Professionals.
Osinbajo told the gathering how the Buhari-led government would end insurgency in the country, especially in the North-East states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.
He also explained how the APC-led government would rescue the over 200 female students of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, seized since April 14 2014; equip the military and give the country a sense of protection.
Osinbajo said, “The first priority is security and to question what has gone wrong in the military. Then, funding the military adequately and ensuring that the Commander-In-Chief leads from the front. But when he was Commander-In-Chief, Buhari led from the front as a soldier. You cannot lead from the rear. You cannot fail to go to where the insurgency is taking place and that is what Buhari has been saying.
“I think that the major problem with the question of security is again that it was not prioritised by this government. It was not taken seriously enough from the beginning. When you have a situation, you do not politicise the insurgency like that. You do not point to the opposition and say it is the opposition that is sponsoring it until General Buhari almost lost his life when Boko Haram attacked him.
“We must start by understanding that there is a war going on in that part of the country and what the government need to do is to get the nation behind it, not pointing accusing fingers at wrong places.
“We need to look at the whole question of funding and equipping the military. The military at the moment is not equipped. I worked with Femi Falana on the mutiny of some solders and what is the complaint of those soldiers who were charged with mutiny? Their complaint is that they were not given equipment and they wanted them to go to battle. So, how do you say that? How does anybody think that you can fight the insurgents without ammunitions?”
The APC vice presidential candidate said that there would be no hiding place for perpetrators of graft as the country’s laws that forbid looting of public treasury would be activated.
According to him, the APC will run a transparent government where public officials would be accountable to the people.
Osinbajo said creation of jobs for the country’s youths remained on top of the agenda of the APC if elected into office.
“Jobs and creation of employment opportunities have been major issues in the manifesto of the APC,” he told the audience.
He re-echoed the party’s earlier promise that the Buhari-led government would place jobless and poor Nigerians on monthly stipends of N5,000 and N7,000 respectively.
“The idea is to take 2.5 million people out of poverty every year. We will give free healthcare to children. We will follow the example of Osun State where such has been done successfully,” he said.
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