Buhari: I’m physically and mentally fit

Buhari: I’m physically and mentally fit

•APC campaign to Jonathan: stop making more promises, bring back Chibok girls

THE All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari returned to the country from the United Kingdom  yesterday, and declared  that he is physically and mentally fit for the task ahead.

He had been away for about three weeks for interactions  with the international  political and business communities as well as Nigerians in the  Diaspora ahead of this month’s presidential election,the highlight being the February 26th lecture he delivered at Chatham House ,London.

“Are you seeing a sick man?” Buhari told reporters at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport,Abuja,in response to a question on the state of his health and mission to London.

Simultaneously, his campaign organization asked President Goodluck Jonathan to stop making more promises about finding the missing Chibok girls, and take concrete steps to reunite the girls with their families.

It was reacting to the statement made by the president on Thursday that he believed that the over 200 girls abducted almost a year ago by Boko Haram were alive in captivity and that government was determined to rescue them.

General Buhari ,speaking to reporters on his London trip said:” What is wrong with me to go to the hospital ? Am l not here now ? Aren’t you seeing me , are you seeing a sick man?

“ l just went off for a couple of weeks to rest. That is all that l did, “ he said on whether he saw his doctor in London.

Commenting on his appearance at Chatham House, Buhari said : “ I went to Chatham House, l read an address and there was a question and answer session. That’s all .”

And in a statement in Abuja yesterday, the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Organisation (APCPCO) asked President Goodluck Jonathan to stop making more promises about finding the missing Chibok girls.Government,it stresed, should take concrete steps to reunite the girls with their families.

Director of Media and Publicity of the campaign organisation, Mallam Garba Shehu, said that what is required of the President is to bring back the missing girls and unite them with their parents, rather than sending emissaries to them and making yet more pledges as he has been doing over the past few days.

Shehu pointed out that it was getting to almost a year since the girls went missing, and that all Nigerians have had since then is nothing but failed promises and dashed hopes.

He said: “The government began by claiming that some of the girls were rescued, to doubting that the girls were missing, to declaring that they had been sighted in Sambisa Forest, to alleging that a ceasefire and hostage release agreement had been reached with Boko Haram.

“It has been one long, roller-coaster emotional ride for the parents and families of the girls and Nigerians”.

The campaign Organisation also asked President Jonathan to take a moment and imagine that it was one of his own children who had been kidnapped and missing for almost a year.

“No amount of money disbursements or promises or emissaries would assuage the pain and extinguish the torment. All that those poor parents need at this time is to have their children back with them.”

The APCPCO also recalled that it took  President Jonathan took  weeks to even ackowledge that the girls were , adding that valuable time was lost then. “We cannot afford to still be dillydallying This is one of those times when action is supposed to speak louder than words,” it said