Masari Speaks on How Buhari Saved Nigeria

•  Says five years of Jonathan still stinks

Iyobosa Uwugiaren in Abuja

The Governor of Kastina State, Alhaji Aminu Masari, wednesday said Nigeria would have been plagued into serious socio-political and economic crisis going by “the huge mess created by the former President Goodluck Jonathan-led government for five years,” if President Muhammadu Buhari had not been elected in the 2015 presidential election.

Assessing the two-year of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led federal government in an exclusive interview with THISDAY in Abuja, the governor who hails from the same state with Buhari, said he is very proud of the achievements of the president.
“Of course, I am very proud of him and proud of what he has done in the past two years. When we came in 2015, 27 states were not paying salaries, and President Buhari came up with different bailouts,” Masari stated when asked if he was proud of two years of Buhari-led administration.

He added: “States were given money to be able to pay salaries; those who owed pensions and gratuities were given money to pay, and my state benefited from that gesture. Each state was also given N10 billion from the excess crude account for infrastructure development.

‘’When the oil price went down and many states could not pay salaries, Buhari introduced what he called budget support. For the first four months, each state was given N1.4 billion and there were many other interventions from the federal government in order to help stabilise the states.”

The former Speaker of the House of Representatives wondered what would have happened if there were no interventions from the Buhari-led federal government to help stabilise the system at the time the APC took over power at the federal level.

According to him, “If we did not have Buhari as president, we would have been in serious crisis with the way President Jonathan and his people messed up the economy, politics and the entire country.

‘’Today, there is relative peace and calm in the politics of our country. We are able to meet the minimum obligation of paying salaries, gratuity/pension and other developmental projects.’’

Responding to the view by some leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that APC was not prepared for governance, Masari stated that people who destroyed the entire country have no moral right to accuse APC of not non-performance.

‘’It is like somebody who destroyed this house, and suddenly people realise that you need to rebuild it. And you realise that there is shortage of cement, water, sand, roofing materials and others. And all the shortages were caused by the people who destroyed the house
“It is unfortunate that we have short memory. Members of PDP know the damage they have done to our country economically, socially, politically and otherwise. They know the damage they did to our country. So, people should not expect us to correct the damage they did in 16 years in less than two.’’

Accusing PDP of playing dirty politics as an opposition party, he urged Nigerians to ask PDP leaders what they did with huge financial resources they got when crude oil was selling between 100 and 150 dollars per barrel.

“When PDP was in power, the country was producing 2.2 million barrels per day-that was the time the country was getting huge revenue; it was more than enough. Instead of even leaving the revenue for the excess crude account, they finished it; wherever there was money, they finished it,’’ Masari further stated.

Talking about the mess APC inherited from the Jonathan-led government, he said when the present government came in, there were insurgents in the entire North-east geo-political zone, accusing PDP of promoting insurgency for its political interest.

In spite of the fact that there were not enough resources, Masari said APC was able to bring peace, security and stability to the region, saying people can now travel from Borno State to Badagry, from South to Sokoto, without fear of being attacked.