Why Influential Nigerians Are Against Buhari —Ngige

Minister of Labour and Employment , Dr Chris Ngige , has said some influential Nigerians are not happy with President Muhammadu Buhari because they are not getting free money like in the past .

He said the aggrieved persons were those opposing second term bid of the President against the interest of the masses.

He also said the choice of Peter Obi from the South- East as the running mate of the Peoples Democratic Party ’ s presidential candidate , Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, would have no influence in the region during the general elections .

Speaking with journalists in Abuja, Ngige alleged that voting did not take place substantially in 2015 in the South- East and South- Soutj as votes were alegedly allotted.

He said, “Yes the PDP has a vice presidential candidate from my zone ( South East ) and I can tell you that it won’ t be easy for them . Winning of election is all about calculation and strategic positioning and measured steps towards a direction .

“Two things are happening ; in 2015 election, there was no voting in most of the South- East and South- South, votes were allocated . The card reader hadn ’ t become functional, it was just new and could be tampered with and at the end of the day most votes were allocated .

“So Muhammadu Buhari was allocated 18, 000 votes in the entire Anambra State; is it possible? When my local government Idemili South alone had 80, 000 registered voters, Idemili North 200 , 000 registered voters, you are talking about 280, 000 votes so they were allocated votes .

“Even if they want to allocate , they can’ t do it now because they are not in charge of police and army like that time . They took police , army , navy everything and armoured tank and drove us away , in fact they put a price on my head .

“This time , it won’ t happen ; people will go and cast votes and whatever is cast is what we will announce . We are not interested in rigging or chasing people about with armoured tank .”

On why some of the elite are not supporting the President , Ngige said, “They want the money that has been trapped by the Treasury Single Account to be pushed down again on the table for them to start taking .

 That one is no longer possible.
Ngige boasted that Obi had no influence in the South East as believed .

“Peter Obi was my successor in Anambra state . I can tell you that those who are shouting that Obi is this and that are the elite , who are looking for one thing or the other and people who don ’ t believe that Muhammadu Buhari has done something good in their lives because they want money .

“Peter Obi wasn ’ t a wonderful governor as people expected him to be. I am the one to tell you because I know what I handed over to him . He is making noise that he handed money over to Obiano . I was the first to leave money; I left N3. 8bn in the bank and I am not counting the bank shares we bought and dividend .

“I left a lot of infrastructural work done, federal roads of which he received close to N15bn as refunds after my tenure. I was the first person to hand over schools to the missionaries in Anambra state . I built more than 880 kilometres of roads . If you go there today you will see the roads I built 15 years ago they are still standing and most of them have no single potholes because I used first class contractors, ” he added .

Copyright PUNCH .

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