Detention Of IPOB Leader, Kanu: “Nigeria Will Never Be Same If…” – Okereke

That is how a budget supposes to be, in the real sense of it if you want to have a reality budget it is suppose to be so. I support the president on the budget and I believe that he present credible budget to Nigeria. Every country supposes to be in deficit when they are sponsoring a budget, but you must have a means to pay back. So when you are borrowing you must have a means, a poor man doesn’t borrow is only a rich man that can borrow, so Nigeria is a rich country even if we are borrowing N20trillion we are not panicking we are not afraid of paying back because Nigeria has the means. Mr. President know what he mean by making such budget that we are going to borrow over N1 trillion, this doesn’t mean we are going to borrow but that the fund is going to be sourced out, we are going to source out the money. You know sometimes when I looked at Nigeria I laughed when people said there is paucity of fund in the country because of lack of implementation of the budget. Our previous governments have never implemented budget right from Obasanjo down to Dr. Jonathan and it has being the system. Why the nation cannot implement the budget is because of corruption and the money is hijacked by certain individuals who are in the corridor of power that is while President Buhari make it clear that we are going to borrow over a trillion naira because when you borrow you will be anxious to pay knowing that you own. So such money is not money you can embezzle. So Buhari is a genius in this budget, he knows how to govern Nigeria. Buhari is on course, if he is not a genus man he would not tell Nigeria he is sorry for the continued scarcity of petrol even when the problem was not entirely fault of his government but an accumulated problem as a result of serial bad leadership we had.

You are making a mistake seven months is like one day. He has a mandate of four years, he has never exhausted one year and mind you that there too much accumulated problem before this man and before this government, there is lots of inherited problems and all the problems are national and he can’t solve one problem this country have today over night is a problem he must take time, he must consult, he must listen, he must get consent of the public as it is he will not do anything he prepare to do on his own, there must be dully consultation before he can actualize or implement or enforce. So when we talk of seven months what is seven months when he has a mandate of four years. Seven months is like few days and which you know that there are so many problems confronting him; Book Haram, corruption, unemployment, hunger and so many other problems facing this government. Is not something that we can solve over night and for, we must give him time at least one year to get his acts together?

Arrest of Nnamdi Kanu is a very big mistake on the part of DSS. Kanu is nobody and didn’t consult the Igbos before his campaign of project Biafra. The arrest of Kanu has made him popular even when nobody knows him. I am sorry for the DSS for making that wonderful mistake, they shouldn’t have arrested him in the first place and now when the court has given order to release him because they have no charge against him. Now they came up with treason charge and it will not hold. I said it categorically it cannot hold because if somebody committed treason you hold him for over two months and you cannot formulate the charges until when a court ordered for his release. You first arraign him in Magistrate Court, the court said he has no case and was discharged, you arraign him at High Court and the court said he has no case and he was also discharged and you take him to another high court again what is your motive. DSS is trying to destroy Nigeria and they must be careful otherwise when the fire start it is going to burn everybody. Kanu should be allowed to go his way. Ndigbo don’t want to go, all we say is that an Igboman must be a president after President Buhari. I am ready and Igbos will be ready to support Buhari even till eight years but an Igboman must be president after him and that is the only agitation that is going to fly. If we go today what do we have? What is in Igboland; we have no road, no drinking water, no industry, we have nothing. We are not willing to go and we are not going anywhere, but DSS must respect Nigeria and respect the Igbo people. Holding Kanu is just a waste of effort and DSS are trying to cause problem in already tensed country but, if anything happen to him Nigeria will never be the same again. This boy came from nowhere they make him popular, they made him a hero as big as I am I didn’t know who is Nnamdi Kanu. But today DSS made him popular, this is a boy who is fighting for his living and you want to make him a hero. Let DSS not neglect the Igbos when every Igboman said release this boy let him go his way that we are not talking of Biafra. We don’t want another war let DSS not use somebody who have not been known, who have not practice politics in Nigeria to cause problem that Nigeria will not sustain. I am warning the president, he should tell the DSS to release Nnamdi Kanu. Let nothing happen to him because if anything happen to Kanu there will be problem. Now the DSS is ashamed to release him. When a court gives order the order is supreme, taken him to another court will not going to hold and now if you have another charges; take him to the previous court that discharged him, let it say it has no competent jurisdiction to discharge him. Why are you taken him to another court, who are you deceiving, what did they want to achieve, do they want to destroy Nigeria? Let the Igbos not change their mind, because enough is enough let the DSS do what the court said and we don’t want to comment on it any further. Let it happen and let him be release to go his way. We are Nigeria and we remain Nigeria we are not going anywhere. All we are saying is let Nigeria be one in fairness, equity, equality before the law and let support the president to govern the country well.

The president said he is going to employ over 5,000 teachers that is a great deal. I want to tell Mr. President that NATFORCE is going to employ over 100,000 people. We are going to take over the tollgates in Nigeria, rebuild it and install security gargets to track illegal follow of arms and ammunitions in the country. You cannot pass tollgate if you carrying arms and ammunitions in your car because we are going to install devices that is going to detect whatever you are carrying and it is only NATFORCE that have the capacity to do that. Tollgate can employ over 30,000 people and we are asking that tollgate should be handed over to NATFORCE for management.

 Yes we should pay for tollgate and with the money realized will be used to maintain the roads. Tollgate is for security and we should build the tollgate now and same time builds the roads. Money generate from tollgate is part of the government revenue. Nigeria is not generating revenue. Let me tell you USA, UK and other advance countries they build tollgates virtually in all there roads and if you drive in any part you pay toll and that is where they make revenue. Part of the money they make from is used to maintain the roads, today in Nigeria we don’t even pay for parks. You don’t park for free and that is what we are going to initiate. With car parks we make money and with tollgate we make money for the government and pay the workers. In Nigeria we have too much money but the problem we have, we don’t think and initiate a project. We believe that government will take care of everybody, yes government is going to take care of everybody but we must initiate project that can generate funds for the government to pay the workers take care for everybody. No Nigeria suppose to be a hungry person or in penury. I said it before, minimum wage is a N18,000 but NATFORCE will pay N25,000 for minimum wage and we are willing to assist the state government to generate internally generated revenue. We are going to help them because they are dying, you cannot be waiting for allocation before you pay your salary. I can volunteer to pay all the states workers because I know how to generate the funds. United Kingdom have no oil well, United States of America where buying oil from Nigeria before and people of Nigeria are traveling abroad to go and work. We can make it possible for those people to come and work in Nigeria. We are most blessed country with richest mineral resources in the world.

That is not what Mr. President should do; he should allow anybody with initiative to work with his government. Anybody with prospect should work for the government to improve the country. Let us close the chapter of where you come from. Now we are talking of one Nigeria we should practice one Nigeria in everything we are doing.

I told you those people may not going to be in office for more than two years. What this government is doing is to use people he knows well that will protect himself and his government. It is only Jonathan who doesn’t understand how the government work that makes that mistake and it backfired on him. Buhari saw the mistake and wouldn’t want to embark on this because he didn’t want to be a failure. What he wants to do is to remain the President of Nigeria and get every Nigeria benefit from his government. For everybody to benefit in the government is the born of contention, if he can do the road that lead to my village Aro Ndi Iziogu, I think I am free to support him. Where Jonathan couldn’t do it, Enugu –Port Harcourt road Jonathan cannot do it, a road that lead to his house he couldn’t do it, Owerri – Port Harcourt road to Bayelsa Jonathan cannot do it and he was president of a country for five years.  So what we need today let Mr. President have Nigeria at heart and give all of us the benefit we needed. I don’t care who become the chief of staff or head of whichever office, because I need my people to benefit all they needed to benefit. Let us remove sentiment, whether he use all Hausa/Fulani in his government to achieve result he should go ahead so far Nigerians will benefit all the needed to benefit in his government. Government is all about trust I wouldn’t get somebody I don’t trust to come and be my chief of staff who is going to poison me tomorrow. My live is more important to me than any other thing. Whoever he put there that is going to do what he wants to do that is going to benefit every Nigeria fine and good. Anyim was the secretary to federal government what did he do to our people, what did you benefited from him; those ministers that work with Jonathan what did they do to  Igbo people, what did you benefit from them. We shouldn’t want such government to exist, if it is only one family that can manage the affair and let every community have their benefit fine and good. What we need is development; we need light, good education, good hospital, and portable water and live in a nice house. We shouldn’t be sycophant that my brother is there and he is doing nothing for me. He is there to siphoning my money and his own. Do I need to be in the government? I don’t think I need such what I need is good governance.