Nigeria @60: Buhari’s Speech Uninspiring, Signifies Nothing – SMBLF Says
BY VICTOR BUORO, ABUJA – The Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF) on Thursday castigated the 60th Independence anniversary broadcast by President Muhammadu Buhari, saying that it contains nothing but “a tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing”.
The SMBLF said that the President would have made sense if he had used the opportunity to outline the process of reconstituting Nigeria to return it to the path of productivity, autonomy for the federating units and sustainable peace and development.
In a statement which was jointly signed by Mr. Yinka Odumakin (South West), Chief Guy Ikokwu (South East), Senator Bassey Henshaw (South South) and Dr. Isuwa Dogo (Middle Belt), the SMBLF noted that in the midst of all the country is going through, it requires the leadership to summon the constituent units to the table of brotherhood to seek fundamental ways out, adding that instead, Nigerians were treated to the usual bland sermons and empty rhetoric.
According to the statement; “The Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum has examined the broadcast of President Buhari to mark the occasion of the 60 years of independence of Nigeria and disappointingly concludes that it was like the tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
“The President said he was engaging in self-reflection but he never remembered how our founding fathers negotiated a federal constitution which put us on the path of development in the early years of independence until military intervention set us on the ruinous unitary lane which has fostered underdevelopment to the point that we are now the global secretariat of poverty at 60,” the Forum stated.
