From Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari is in charge of Nigeria at this time is not mere happenstance.
Mohammed stated this in commemoration of President Buhari’s 79th birthday which took place on December 17th.
Mohammed, while paying tribute to President Buhari, also said he was doing so due to the President’s service to the nation.
Mohammed added that President Buhari’s life has been that of unalloyed service to Nigeria, his country, and to humanity at large.
The President, Mohammed noted, has been almost everything there is to be in the service of the nation, and he has always given his all each time and not once has he fallen short.
‘He has been a soldier, governor, minister, trust fund chairman, military head of state, democratically-elected president (twice).
‘He fought a war to keep Nigeria together, and that explains his passion for the country’s unity.
‘It is said that everything happens for a reason. That Buhari is in charge of Nigeria at this time is not mere happenstance. His years in the military that saw him reaching the peak of his career; his various positions within and outside the military, his global exposure, his unmatched demeanour and, above all, his wisdom have all helped to stabilise Nigeria at the most difficult of times,’ Mohammed said.
Mohammed quoted English Journalist, Rudyard Kiplin, whom he said in his poem entitled ‘If’, could well have been writing about President Buhari when he wrote inter alia:
‘If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too; if you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don’t deal in lies or being hated, don’t give way to hating, and yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise…’
He said indeed, President Buhari is a steady hand in troubled times, and that explained why presiding over the affairs of the country during a most turbulent period, he has managed to keep the nation afloat, and even set it on a trajectory of growth and development.
‘Despite a myriad of security challenges, and amidst dwindling national earnings and a crippling global pandemic, he has racked up a number of achievements, most of them unprecedented,’ Mohammed also said.
Reeling out the President’s achievements, Mohammed said Buhari has leapfrogged Nigeria to the modern rail era, set the nation on the path of unprecedented infrastructural development, built the Second Niger Bridge that his predecessors only built on paper and gave Nigeria its first modern airport terminals in decades.
Mohammed also said Buhari provided a social safety net for the poor, introduced a school feeding system that has helped push up school enrollment, institutionalised measures to fight corruption through the strict implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) and the introduction of the whistleblower policy, among others.
‘Like I said recently, his achievements may not seem too obvious now, especially with naysayers, sponsored attackers and desperate opposition politicians unrelenting in their craft, but posterity will surely be kind to this man, whose life has meant service to his fatherland, a man who goes to bed at night and wakes up in the morning thinking Nigeria.
‘I believe God has a reason for keeping him alive when many had written him off as dead,’ Mohammed further said.