Buhari’s Beef With IBB Made Niger ‘Pariah State’ For 8 Years – APC Chieftain

BY VICTOR BUORO – For his perceived unforgiveness towards former Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, Niger State allegedly had it brutally rough under the eight years presidency of Muhammadu Buhari.

This is the blunt submission by a chieftain of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and former Commissioner for Information, Culture, and Tourism in Niger State, Jonathan Vatsa who knocked Buhari for treating ‘The Power State’ as an ‘outcast’ all through his time in the Aso Rock Presidential Villa

According to Vasta, despite the overwhelming support that the Niger people gave to Buhari in the 2015 and 2019 presidential elections, the administration regrettably shut its door against the State “simply because of his unforgiving spirit against General Babangida over the 1985 coup against him.”

Clearly referencing General Babangida’s ouster of Buhari as then Military Head of State on August 27, 1985, the ex-Information Commissioner said Niger State turned out the highest votes for APC in 2015 and 2019 but regrettably, what it got in return was “total neglect” in all aspect of human development.

The APC stalwart told newsmen during an interactive session in Minna, the Niger State capital that “the only benefit the state got from Buhari’s government were failed promises and abandoned federal projects all over the state, including the ones he awarded and those he inherited.”

Vatsa, who was a former APC Publicity Secretary in the State, condemned the former President’s negative attitude toward the people of Niger state because of his personal hatred for one person, saying; “In all elections that Buhari contested in the country before becoming president, Niger State has always given him maximum votes. It is, therefore, unfair for him to treat Niger state the way he did in his eight years rule.”

Further berating the Daura-born Army General for his insensitivity and lack of appreciation towards the Niger people, Vasta claimed that over 15 federal projects, including roads in the state, both the ones he (Buhari) awarded and the ones he inherited, were all abandoned.

Specifically, he said; “Niger state cannot boost any federal government project that was completed by the Buhari administration in the last eight years. Look at the Suleja-Minna dual carriage; the Lambata-Agaie-Bida highway; Minna-Tegina-Kontagora roads; the Kontagora-Rijau-Tungan Magajiya road; the Baro port project; the Bida Basin oil exploration and many more. None of these projects saw the light of the day, all because of his hatred for one individual.”

He stated that to further demonstrate his hatred for the state because of IBB, the former President never paid a single state visit to Niger state in his eight years of presidency, adding; “The two times he came to the state was in Baro where he commissioned an empty port and in Sunti sugar company where he laid a foundation for a multi-billion sugar company that never saw the light of the day.”

The one-time Coordinator of Public Affairs to ex-Governor Abubakar Sani Blello also maintained that while the former president failed in his many promises to the state, including the Minna-Abuja rail line, he hurriedly awarded and paid for the Kano-Maradi in the Niger Republic rail line project, saying “Buhari’s body language and his agenda made him not to have peace throughout his eight years in office.”

Going forward, the ex-Information Commissioner charged President Ahmed Bola Tinubu to address the injustice that Buhari visited on the Niger people by completing all abandoned Federal Government projects in the state for the overall benefit of the ordinary citizens and the State in general.