Era of Free and Easy is Gone for Good - President Buhari

President Muahmmadu Buhari on Wednesday, July 13th  said that the era of free and easy money in the country had gone for good.

Buhari made this known when he inaugurated road and drainage projects in Tsafe Local Government Area of Zamfara. He inaugurated the 20km township road and 40km drainages in Tsafe Local Government amounting to N2.1 billion. The president also inaugurated the 75-kilometre Wanke- Danjigba-Kucheri-Kigama-Bilbis Road with seven bridges valued eight billion Nara. 

He vowed that his administration would enthrone good governance through vigorous prosecution of the ongoing war against corruption in the country. Buhari pledged to continue the ongoing war against corruption, noting that corruption had retarded the growth of the country. According to him, the ongoing crusade against corruption is not aimed at humiliating anyone but rather meant to recover all looted fund to be put to public use. He, therefore, called on the people of the state and Nigerians in general to join his administration’s efforts in ensuring that the change desired was well delivered. 

“As the people of the state are aware the change agenda was central issue of our 2015 electioneering campaign. “Since this administration’s assumption of office in May 2015, the journey to fix the country and restore the hope of the common man in the Nigerian project has begun in earnest. 

“You have all agreed to join me and work as agents of change, the challenge before all of us therefore is translating the change into reality. “I,therefore, wish to call on every one to think closely about the Nigerian situation. “There is no easy money to throw around, we must go back to farming, livestock rearing so that we could develop the industries. 

“We must put our hands on deck to ensure success of our mission in engineering Nigeria. “If efforts were made in the past to diversify the economy from our absolute reliance on a single commodity, we would not have found ourselves in our current situation. 

“I assure all Nigerians that the grim economic situations are passing phase which all societies go through,’’ he added. The president also noted with delight that the security situation in the country was improving, not only in the North-East, but all over the country. He also expressed the hope that the macro-economic policies as well as the monetary policies being implemented by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would lead to steady growth in significant sectors of the economy. On security, Buhari noted that the commitment of his administration to secure the country had already started yielding fruitful results. 

He said that for the first time in the history of Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East, seven years ago, the people of Borno celebrated this year’s the Eid-el-Fitri with ease, devoid of any security barricades. He reiterated the government’s determination to deal decisively with any threat to security of the nation from any quarters. 

“Part of the reasons that I’m personally here is to flag off the military operations aimed at routing out the menace of cattle rustling and armed bandits, not only in the state, but in the entire axis of North-West. “I also wish to reiterate to the people of Zamfara and to Nigerians in general, the commitment of this administration to restoring sanity in governance.

 “We shall continue to prosecute the war against corruption. We do not wish or desire to humiliate or disgrace anybody, but we must recover stolen fund and put them to collective public use,’’ he said. Buhari said he had listened to the litany of requests put forward by the state governor and gave an assurance that he would carefully study them and respond appropriately. 

In his remarks, Gov. Abdulaziz Yari, said the construction of the roads was part of the state government’s efforts to open up the rural areas, especially being an agrarian state . According to him, this will enable farmers transport their farm produce to the urban centres. Yari said that the road projects would also to create gainful employments to the teeming youths of the state. He revealed that the state government had also embarked on other roads projects across the state, covering about 610 kilometers. 

The state government has so far constructed over 300 roads and drainages covering 700 kilometers in 14 local government areas of the state at over N42.78 billion. He said that the state government, he said, had also embarked on the rehabilitation and reconstruction of about 12 federal roads spread across the three Senatorial zones of the state worth billions of naira. 

The governor called on the president to urgently intervene and ensure the refund of the money to the state government. He further said that the state government had so far expended N1.2billion to boost girl-child education, including girls whose education were interrupted, married women, divorcees and widows