By Akeem Abas
In a bid to ensure the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari, the Minister for Communications, Adebayo Shittu, has inaugurated the Coalition of Grassroots Campaigners in Oyo State.
The group was unveiled on Saturday at the Emmanuel Alayande Resource Centre in Ibadan.
The coalition has its members drawn from among professionals, artisans and various political parties with the aim of galvanizing massive votes for Buhari’s re-election.
Shittu said that the objective of the coalition was to mobilize massive votes for President Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to lead the nation to the next level, having performed excellently in their first term.
“Nigerians are more sensible and wants Buhari re-elected as their president knowing that he can be trusted with their money and resources without fear of looting.
“We want to ensure that by the time Buhari will be leaving office in 2023, all states in the country will have been served with good roads, railways and jobs amongst others,” he said.
Appraising Buhari’s administration in the last 42 months, the minister said the administration had surpassed successive administrations on performance.
“Over the last 20 years, no federal administration in the country has ever employed 50,000 youths in a year. Buhari has employed 500,000 youths through the N-Power scheme with each earning N30,000 monthly.
“This is at a time when his administration, through oil, is earning less than 60 percent of what was earned by previous administrations,” he said.
He said that the administration had increased power generation from 3,000mw to 7,000mw, of what was generated by previous admnistrations, hoping that additional 3,000mw would be met in the next two years.
Shittu said that the Buhari administration had reclaimed 11 towns captured by insurgents in Maiduguri within a year.
“The administration feeds no fewer than 9.3 million pupils with jobs created for poultry farmers and 93,000 jobs for food vendors across the country.
“Today, more than eight million jobs has been created through agriculture under the federal government diversification programme,” he said.
The minister said that the Buhari administration had in 2017 alone spent N275 billion to revive abandoned federal roads across the country.
He noted that for two years in the administration before Buhari came on board, there was no work on the federal roads because contractors were not paid.
“Lagos-Ibadan expressway and Oyo-Ogbomoso expressway were abandoned for several years. The narrow gauge railway was also abandoned for many years.
“Buhari has now awarded the building of standard gauge railway from Lagos-Ibadan-Kano, Kano-Maiduguri-Port Harcourt and Port Harcourt-Lagos. The Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge railway will be formally inaugurated by month end,” he said.
He said that the administration had also done very well in its anti-corruption crusade, which he said, former President Goodluck Jonathan confirmed.
Shittu said the Treasury Single Account implemented by the Buhari administration had reduced looting of the treasury drastically and blocked wastages.
Mr Ibrahim Bolomope, Chairman of the coalition and former NLC Chairman in the state, said that the coalition with over 1.4 million members would mobilize massive votes for Buhari’s re-election.
He also said that the Buhari/Osinbajo administration had done well in the areas of workers’ welfare, agriculture, social investment, infrastructure, education, security, health and anti-corruption campaign.
The inauguration was attended by members of the coalition from the 33 local governments in Oyo State. (NAN)
