The Forum of Non-Governmental Organizations in Nigeria (FONGON) on Tuesday accused those who looted the nation’s treasury of being behind the campaign against the second term aspiration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The forum, which comprises 200 NGOs with three million members, askednNigerians not to fall for the trap of looters who want to regain power through the backdoor.
It faulted the letter and a statement by both ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and a former Military President, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida on Buhari’s re-election bid.
It said it has launched nationwide intermittent rallies to checkmate any plot to truncate Buhari’s bid for re-election. FONGON made the disclosures in a February 6 letter to Buhari which was made public at a rally at the Unity Fountain in Abuja.
The rally signaled the series of sensitization campaign of Nigerians to allow Buhari another term in office.
Amid drumbeats and dancing, the FOGON members wielded placards with many inscriptions.
Some of the inscriptions were “Southwest Solidarity Forum Declares Support for PMB,” Sai Baba Beyond 2019, “200, 000 Unemployed Graduates Enlisted To N-power,” “ Nigeria’s Stock Market Now One,”
“Inflation has fallen for 11 consecutive months,” Performing PMB Beyond 2019.”
Others were “N24.7 billion saved monthly through TSA; Nigeria’s Stock Market is now one of the performing in the world; 5.2 million primary schools in 28, 249 schools are being fed daily by FG
The letter, which was read by the National Coordinator of FONGON, Comrade Wole Badmus, said the NGOs came together to “serve as a counter-voice to the nay sayers and looters who are increasingly
dominating the polity.”
FONGON said: “Mr. President, we have chosen to come out this time because there seems to be an orchestrated and well-choreographed campaign going on across the country at the moment to demonize Buhari administration and hoodwink unsuspecting Nigerians into believing that the administration has achieved nothing since assuming office.
“The looters, economic saboteurs and unpatriotic fellows are feeling the heat of Buhari administration’s fight against corruption.
“They are earnestly yearning for a return to the immediate unedifying past in which the national treasury became the piggy bank of a few. They also want to pave the way for the return of the same people who brought the country to where it was before you assumed office.
“Your Excellency, the recent spate of letter and memo writing is not an accident. We believe it is aimed at discouraging you from running for a constitutionally-guaranteed second term which they are afraid will put Nigeria on irreversible path of probity, prudence and progress.
“We believe there will be more letters and more voices urging you not to run. And we urge you (Mr. President) not to heed such calls. Those who are for you are more than those who are against you.
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“That is why we have decided to come out. We are concerned that unless an urgent action is taken, the voices of these people, whom we believe are being sponsored by looters and their ilk, may become the dominant voices.”
In spite of the criticism of the President, FONGON insisted that Buhari had been doing well.
The Forum added: “Mr. President, your administration is putting Nigeria on a solid footing. We believe you have what it takes to do it but that all Nigerians must give you their unalloyed support because it will not be an easy task. After all, it is easy to destroy than to build
“We (members of the FONGON) will match the naysayers’ propaganda for propaganda, memo for memo, and rally for rally. We will go from door-to-door, house-to-house, city-to-city and state-to-state to let Nigerians know the good work that your administration is doing.
“As we say never again to the enemies of the nation, looters and criminals taking charge of our nation’s affairs, we pray that Allah will continue to strengthen, guide and protect you. We urge God to give you more wisdom and good health to pilot the affairs of this great nation.
It asked Buhari to ignore calls not to vie for second term in office.
“We ask you not to hesitate to go for another four-year term to enable you to go for another four-year term to enable you to consolidate on the good work that you have started,” the Forum said.
“There is another side to the story that is being told by some myth-sayers, treasury looters, and those who have ruin and destroyed this country in the past. We are doing this to send a message that there is another side to their story. That the story they are telling the world is either half-truth or completely falsehood. “That what takes bad men to destroy the society is what take good men to stand aloof and do nothing. We have kept quiet enough. We have watched them enough and we found out that enough is enough. Of course, you are aware of series of letters written here and there by people who openly raped this country and brought the country to economic comatose and political quagmire.
“They are now trying to turn themselves to democratic champion. We cannot watch that. President Buhari is trying to resolve a problem that took over 16 years to destroy. It is not easy. The man is trying and doing his best. He is achieving a lot in security, anticorruption war and the next thing is trying to turn the economy around.
“He has taken the nation out of recession which is highly commendable. Our foreign reserve is now over $40 billion which is unprecedented.”
Reacting to a letter ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and a statement by a former Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, Badmus said the two leaders were wrong in their assessment of President Buhari.
He said: “It is only God that cannot be wrong. They are wrong as human. If you look at the issue of nepotism being talked about Obasanjo, he did it most in his regime. Look at the military appointments he made, all of them are Christians.”
“We want to let the world know that both Obasanjo and IBB’s letter and statement are purely political to distract the government. They are to distract the government. We are using this rally to tell president Buhari not to be distracted but to focus on his work on nation building. History and posterity will absorb him, Nigerians will absorb and support him.”
“Somebody who annulled a free and fair election in the history of this country, after spending eight years in power, somebody who used constitutional two term in office and tried to use unconstitutional means to get third term cannot claim to be democratic. They are now trying to tell somebody who have spent less than three years not to run for an election. This is a contradictory contradiction, we will not take it,” Badmus added.
