President Muhammadu Buhari Wednesday in Abuja warned of tougher security measures in restive parts of the country, with review of operations and strategy, reassuring Nigerians that the efforts that resulted in relative peace in South-South, and rescuing of North-East from the hold of terrorists will be ramped up.
Speaking at a meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the President noted that the major security challenges have remained in the North Central and North West, saying his administration will be very tough on terrorists.
According to President Buhari, the South-south part of the country have relative peace now than during previous administrations.
He said, "I will like us to reflect on what the situation was before we came in. How many Local Government Areas were under the control of terrorists in the North-East? In the South-South, we all know what the situation was; now we have relative peace. With the resources at our disposal, we have done very well. People are very forgetful. Our main problem now is in the North West and North Central. People are killing one another in these places, what for? We are going to be very tough".
The President urged party members to be more mindful of the pitfalls that led to the ouster of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2015.
He told new members of the National Working Committee (NWC), which had been delegated powers of NEC for a period, to work towards keeping the party together by creating more room for discussions.
According to him: "The PDP thought that only time could remove them, and the time actually came. They thought it was impossible to lose elections. The APC was formed by a merger of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), some members from All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the new PDP, which was a faction of the then ruling party.
"We put together a committee with clear terms of reference on how to remove the PDP from power. The PDP thought it wasn't going to be possible. But it happened. There's no time to develop differences among ourselves. We have no time for that".
Speaking further, President Buhari commended Mai Mala Buni-led Caretaker/Extra-ordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) and all its members for offering themselves to serve the party despite all the attendant challenges, and for organizing the National Convention that produced the NWC.
He appealed to all aspirants who were not elected to put in efforts in support of the leadership of the Party to achieve our goal of success in the forthcoming elections, and as well as all litigants to withdraw cases against the Party.
President Buhari also advised party leaders against imposing unpopular candidates who cannot win popular elections on the APC.
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According to him, "i enjoin you all to follow due process in all the party processes and more importantly to develop more mechanisms against corruption. I call on all party members to abide by all extant laws, rules, and regulations and to leaders of our party to avoid imposition of candidates that cannot win popular elections. This dictatorial behavior cost us many strategic seats in the past. In the recent past this led to some of our strong members unfortunately opting to go elsewhere because of unfairly oppressive behavior of party leaders at state level.
"I must caution strongly against any tendency towards developing cliques, in-fighting within the party. We want to win well not succumb to factions on account of personal acerbities and desire to retain control at all costs. That surely is not the road to win. You came in at a critical time and the entire party has a high expectation from you. The critical task ahead of you remains to continue to forge the unity of purpose among party members and to keep securing needful compromises in the interest of our great party."
