Following the broadcast by President Muhammadu Buhari to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Nigeria, the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders have described the broadcast as disappointing on the part of the President.
While emphasizing that the broadcast which ought to have given Nigerians hope had further dampened their morale towards conceptualizing a country of their dream.
The leaders under the auspices of Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum while describing the broadcast as mere sound and fury as well as empty rhetorics, stated that Buhari bungled the opportunity to assuage Nigerians on his concrete and viable plans for the country.
According to the forum in a statement signed by Yinka Odumakin, South-West; Chief Guy Ikokwu, South-East; Senator Bassey Henshaw, South-South and Dr. Isuwa Dogo, Middle Belt, “It is shameful that on this type of occasion, our president had to be lecturing us on why we had to pay more for fuel because countries like Ghana, Egypt and Niger are paying more.”
The statement read “The Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum has examined the broadcast of President Buhari to mark the occasion of the 6O years of independence of Nigeria and disappointingly concludes that it was like the tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”
The forum added that in the midst of all the country is going through which requires her leadership to summon the constituent units to the table of brotherhood to seek fundamental ways out, Nigerians were treated to nothing but the “usual bland sermons.”
Adding that the President never remembered how founding fathers negotiated a federal constitution which places the country on the path of development in the early years of independence, the forum maintained that Military incursion had also set the country on the ruinous unitary lane which has fostered underdevelopment to the point that Nigeria is now the global Secretariat of poverty at 60.
The statement added that “The President would have been more inspiring if he had used the opportunity to lay out the process of reconstituting Nigeria to return it to the path of productivity, autonomy for the federating units and sustainable peace and development.
