The Secretary to the Government of Federation, SGF, Mr Boss Mustapha, said yesterday that the tough decisions President Muhammadu Buhari will take during his second term will be in the interest of Nigeria.
He spoke in an interview with newsmen in Yola, against the backdrop of President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent statement that his second term would be tough.
Buhari won a second term of office when he defeated his main opposition candidate, Atiku Abubakar, of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in the rescheduled February 23 Presidential election.
The SGF described the President as a good man who had the trust of ordinary Nigerians and would like to see improvement in their lives, while the nation moved to the next level.
“When we came to power in 2015 about 27 states couldn’t pay salaries; we had to take tough decisions like giving them bail-out and Paris Club refund. These are tough decisions,” he said.
He also identified the ban on rice and fertilizer importation as one of the tough decisions taken by the government and which yielded positive results by boosting local production, among other things.
“By such tough decisions we are able to raise the number of rice farmers from 4 million to 12 million and we are about 98 per cent self-sufficient in rice.
“Due to the establishment of many fertilizer blending plants after we banned the importation of fertilizer, the product is now available and the prize is going down,” Mustafa added.
The SGF explained that anti-graft institutions such as Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission as well as the Code of Conduct Bureau were being strengthened to tackle corruption.
Noting that with the strengthening of such institutions, corruption would be nipped in the bud, Mustapha said: “It’s better to prevent it (corruption) instead of spending a lot of money prosecuting corruption cases.”
On Saturdays governorship and State Assembly polls in Adamawa State, the SGF said misunderstanding among APC stakeholders in the state was being resolved to ensure that the party retained the state.
He said he had met with the party stakeholders in Abuja and was in Adamawa to further iron out all differences to ensure that the party approached the election as a united family.
“I can assure you that we are doing very much in that regard; we had a meeting in my office and my visit now is in furtherance of the meeting.
“We are going to come out more stronger, more united, focused with sole resolve of retaining the governorship; we’ll retain Adamawa within the family of APC,” Mustafa said.
The SGF said that Buhari supporters should not worry over the loss to Atiku by 32,000 votes in Adamawa, considering the fact that Atiku is from there and had put a lot to win the state.
“We were not defeated if you look at the scenario; having the opposition candidate from Adamawa, a former Vice President who is known in Adamawa politics for over 20 years…
“We put up a formidable fight to narrow PDP votes to the gap of only 32,000, while our candidate (Buhari) gave PDP a wider gap of 900,000 votes in Katsina.
“And if you look at the entire votes in North East, APC exceeded PDP by two million votes; we got 3.2 million, while PDP got 1.2 million,” Mustafa said.
The SGF assured that the North East, like other parts of Nigeria, would not regret voting for Buhari.
He disclosed that N55 billion had been earmarked for the take off of the North East Development Commission in the 2019 budget.
Mustafa explained that N10 billion of the amount was earmarked for the setting up of the commission’s office and N45 billion for it’s intervention programmes.
The SGF noted that over the years, the Victims Support Fund and Presidential Committee on North East Initiative had been actively engaged in resettlement, rehabilitation and reconstruction works in the region.
