- Promises to complete projects in Southeast zone before 2023
BY EDMOND ODOK – President Muhammadu Buhari said on Thursday that it is ‘unthinkable’ for the Igbos to consider leaving the Nigerian Federation given their enterprising spirit and contributions to nation-building and economic growth.
Promising to complete critical infrastructure in the South-East geo-political zone, the President said Igbo people are relevant in the country, a fact that is fully expressed in their hugely successful businesses spread nationwide.
Addressing a town hall meeting with South-East leaders during his one-day official visit to Imo state, the President maintained that the Igbo people are very relevant in Nigeria, given their globally acknowledged resourcefulness and enterprising spirit.
‘‘The fundamental thing about the Igbo people is that there is no town you will visit in Nigeria without seeing the Igbos being in charge of either infrastructure or pharmaceutical industry. Therefore, it is unthinkable for me that any Igbo man would consider himself not to be a part of Nigeria. The evidence is there for everyone to see that Igbos are in charge of Nigeria’s economy.’’
A statement by the Presidential media aide, Femi Adesina, titled, ‘I want to be remembered as a president who stabilised Nigeria, President Buhari tells South-East leaders’, said; “The fundamental thing about the Igbo people is that there is no town you will visit in Nigeria without seeing the Igbos being in charge of either infrastructure or pharmaceutical industry.
President Buhari, who maintained that no country can make any meaningful progress without infrastructural development, blamed successive governments at the federal level for allowing critical infrastructure in the country to continuously deteriorate.
He also told Igbo leaders at the meeting that with less than two years to go in his eight-year tenure as president, security remains a major priority for his administration, even as he promised that the Federal Government would complete ongoing key projects in the South East, including the 2nd Niger Bridge as well as the railway lines and routes linking the region with other parts of the country.
“I firmly believe that when you get infrastructure right, Nigerians will mind their own businesses,” the President said, adding that as a group, the Igbos would benefit more from the ongoing development of infrastructure in the country because “they are more enterprising”.
Buhari had earlier commissioned four projects executed by Governor Hope Uzodinma, including the Naze/Ihiagwa/Nekede/Obinze link road, the Balloon Driven/Flood Control drainage at Dick Tiger Road, the Egbeada Bypass road and the New Exco-Chambers, Government House, Owerri.
Addressing Imo residents at the commissioning of Egbeada bypass named after a prominent son of the State, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, President Buhari expressed happiness with the level of work done so far by the State government.
“I am very pleased with what I have seen and I assure you that I will support Imo State within the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” he said.
Ahead of the Presidential visit to Imo State, IPOB had ordered the people to stay-at-home and businesses shut to protest against the Federal Government. And on Thursday, main roads were empty while markets and shops remained shut in Owerri, the Imo State capital
