President Muhammadu Buhari has commended Nigerians for their perseverance and urged them not to lose confidence in his administration’s ability to achieve change in the country.
Mr. Buhari voiced the sentiments Friday night at the 2015 Vanguard Awards in Lagos where he received the Personality of the Year Award. In a speech that was meant to address widespread disenchantment over one of the country’s worst fuel and electric power crises, the Nigerian president said he was aware of Nigerians’ difficulties, listing the deepening fuel scarcity, perennial electric power problems, and inflation, among other issues.
''As a government that was propelled into office by the power of the people, we cannot but feel the pains of our compatriots, and we deeply empathize with them,” Mr. Buhari said in his speech. He stated that the government was “working round the clock to ease the pains of Nigerians,” claiming, “the efforts of the government have started yielding fruits as we seek to make the petroleum products available nationwide, restore gas supply to the power generating firms, reflate the economy and put Nigerians back to work.”
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, represented Mr. Buhari at the event.
The president’s speech added that Mr. Buhari understood that Nigerians had started questioning whether the current situation was the CHANGE they voted for, while some have critics had even gone as far as suggesting that they had been duped the All Progressives Congress (APC).
“Well, I can tell Nigerians that our CHANGE AGENDA is real, and that indeed, they will get the change they voted for. Nigerians have not entered 'One Chance', because the 'One Chance' drivers and their conductors have been driven out of town,” Mr. Buhari declared in his speech. He added: “Change is a process, and that process has begun.” According to the president, the country’s current pains would soon give way to abundant joy “as we put our country firmly on the path of sustainable growth and development.”
Mr. Buhari described all Nigerians, civil society organizations and the media as the real heroes of the 2015 general elections in particular and the country's democracy in general, declaring that the accolades belonged to these groups.
President Buhari praised the media for its role in ensuring the relative success of the 2015 general elections as well as the country’s democratic resilience. According to him, “When the history of the last general elections as well as our democracy is eventually written, I have no doubt that the media will occupy a prominent place on its honor's list.” He said the Nigerian media had always stood on the side of the people and fought for the national interest both during democratic and military rules.
The custodians of the Vanguard Awards disclosed that they choose Mr. Buhari for the 2015 Personality of the Year honor because the president was “a living example of what tenacity, fortitude, and perseverance mean in human experience, and until future experience proves otherwise, he is the closest yet that Nigeria will have to America’s Abraham Lincoln.”