28th May, 2023
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
Outgoing President, Muhammadu Buhari has said the President-elect, Bola Tinubu’s dream to lead Nigeria was propelled by a burning passion to put the nation among leading countries of the world.
Buhari, in his farewell nationwide broadcast on Sunday morning, said Tinubu had indeed worked for this day and that God has crowned his efforts.
“I have no doubt that your passion for excellence, reliance on competence, fairness in relationships, commitment to equity, loyalty to the country and desire for Nigeria to be globally relevant would come through for you, under God’s guidance, as you lead our country to levels higher that I am leaving.
“You are the best candidate among all the contestants and Nigerians have chosen well,” he said.
He, however, said this year witnessed the most keenly contested Presidential Elections since the first Republic and that this demonstrated that the nation’s democracy was getting better and more entrenched with each election.
“We must as a nation improve and sustain gains we make in the electoral process, on an incremental basis for Nigeria to take its rightful place among Nations.
“Our democracy provides for, allows and encourages seeking redress for perceived injustices, enabling some candidates and political parties that did not agree with the results to go to court.
“Irrespective of the outcome of the various cases, I urge all parties involved to accept the decision of our courts and join hands to build a better Nigeria.
“I salute the doggedness and resilience of all the Presidential Candidates and their political parties for believing in our judicial system by taking their grievances with the election results to court. In the course of the campaigns, we had argued and disagreed on how to make Nigeria better but we never disagreed or had any doubts that Nigeria has to be better.
“As your President, I call on all of us to bring to bear the strength of our individualism, the power of our unity, the convictions of our beliefs to make Nigeria work better and together with one spirit and one purpose,” Buhari stated.
The president said the last eight years had been an exciting experience in his desire and commitment to see a Nigeria in which public goods and services were available, and accessible within a united, peaceful and secure nation.
“Fellow Nigerians, on the strength of your overwhelming support for me and my political party, I started this journey with a great deal of promise and expectation from you. I never intended to be just politically correct but to do the correct things that will make meaningful impact on the lives of the common Nigerian.
“This high expectation was not misplaced because, like the ordinary Nigerian, I had grown tired of watching the country progressively moving away from the path of correctness,” he added.
The president noted that to ensure that democracy remained resilient and elected representatives remained accountable to the people, he is leaving behind an electoral process which guaranteed that votes count, results are credible, elections are fair and transparent and the influence of money in politics reduced to the barest minimum.
“And Nigerians can elect leaders of their choice. We are already seeing the outcome of this process as it provided an even playing field where persons without any political God-Father or access to money defeated other well-resourced candidates,” he said.