PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari expressed fears yesterday that the opposition in the country has stupendous resources at its disposal in preparation for the 2019 elections which the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) may not be able to match.
The President also said that the opposition elements were sponsoring mischief against his government in a bid to discredit him and make him unpopular.
President Buhari, in his speech, when the Buhari Media Organization, BMO, paid him a courtesy visit at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, sympathised with those who were supporting his government in view of the increasing opposition against him.
He however appreciated the efforts of members of the group who he said may have lost their friends for just supporting him, stressing that it was a great sacrifice they were making without financial rewards.
According to him, “I don’t think I can thank you enough for your steadfastness under very difficult circumstances. It is not easy to defend this administration and more in particular to defend me.
“But your consistency has given me a lot of confidence. And I know you are doing it as a sacrifice not only in terms of physical or mental but material sacrifice.
“Because as I keep on saying, the opposition elements are now sitting on incredible resources which I am afraid we might not match at all. For that reason the opposition is sponsoring mischief from different angles which in spite of the incumbency of government we cannot absolutely stop.
“It is you who are fighting it and I cannot thank you enough for that. Most of the people I jailed have been given back all that they had taken before I was jailed.”
The President then went on memory lane on the decision he took as a military head of state where he ordered the arrest, detention and prosecution of those who allegedly looted public funds, but also noted that those who were found not guilty were discharged.
He said, “Most of those people who were judged by the various tribunals have been given back what they have taken. I spent 18 months in detention and luckily they did not find anything against me and I was released. But my problem was that there was a journalist from Edo State who wrote an article on me that my mother had to die to save me. This was because I was only released when my mother died to go and bury her. Of course, you know as a Muslim tradition demands that you are buried where you die.
“So, I can appreciate the sacrifices most of you sitting here have made in terms of materialism or even losing some of your friends to continue to support me. I have been here for three years and you have proved to people that you are not here for material things, but out of sacrifice and the strength of the moral courage you have is the the strength of the physical, it is the strength of losing the friends you have.
“I am sure you are being asked, this support you are busy giving Buhari, what do you get out of it. And that is why I commend your steadfastness and I am very grateful for it. In this country whether people like it or not, they will remain grateful for your courage because you have the courage to do the research, to take the time to reply mischievous representation and we are very grateful.”
In his remarks, the leader of Buhari Media Organization which was formerly known as Buhari Media Support Organization, Austin Braimoh said, the group believed in the government of President Buhari He said the group had in the course of carrying out its assignment used various organs of mass communication to project the administration, stressing that it changed the negative narratives the opposition was dishing out when President Buhari went on medical vacation to London.
