The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on Tuesday in Damaturu, the Yobe State capital, urged parents to send their children to school to counter the vile ideologies of the Boko Haram sect.
He also said a vote for the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu and his running mate, Kashim Shettima, in next month’s election would sustain his regime’s progress in security, economy and education.
According to a statement signed by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, Buhari spoke at the APC presidential campaign rally at August 27 Stadium in Damaturu.
The statement is titled, ‘Electing Tinubu/Shettima will guarantee education, security, economy, President Buhari says in Damaturu.’
Emphasising the need for education in countering the Boko Haram ideology that had pervaded the region, the President told parents and guardians in Yobe, ‘‘Make sure you send your children to school and make them understand that whatever you have in this world can be taken away from you except the knowledge you have in your head.”
‘‘I was an orphan; I did not know my father. I spent nine years in a boarding school and because of education, I was enlisted into the Nigerian Army.
‘‘I want you to strengthen your faith, try your best to uphold the children and family God has entrusted to you. Do not betray that trust,” he added.
He urged the APC candidates to ensure good governance when elected and not to disappoint the electorate.
In his remarks, Tinubu urged Nigerians to reject notions about the Buhari-led regime peddled by the opposition parties.
‘‘This government is a government of progress, integrity and honesty,’’ he said.
While lauding Buhari for the return of peace and normalcy in Nigeria’s North-East, Tinubu promised that his government would turn the region into the Agro-allied processing Centre of Nigeria.
He also promised that undergraduates would no longer spend extra years in the university beyond the standard duration of the course of study as he would address the root causes of the perennial ASUU strikes.
Therefore, Tinubu advised the people of Yobe and the North-East Nigeria to vote for the APC candidates in the general election, assuring that Nigeria’s economic prosperity would blossom under his watch.
On his part, Senate President Ahmed Lawan accused the Peoples Democratic Party of destroying Nigeria during its 16 years in power, saying, ‘‘they should be ashamed of themselves and have no right to go around Nigeria seeking votes.’’
In attendance were all the APC governors from the North-East, the APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, the vice presidential candidate, Shettima as well as Plateau State Governor and Director-General of the Presidential Campaign Council, Simon Lalong, among others.
