Remove hatred, Buhari pioneer of Nigerian revolutions —Femi Adesina

The Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, has said if Nigerians removed hatred, malice, indecent politics, and the ills that had plagued the country and its leaderships across different governments, they would accept President Buhari as the pioneer of different kinds of revolution in the country.

In a post on his Facebook page on Thursday night, Adesina maintained that President Buhari had pioneered revolutions in agriculture, infrastructure, especially roads, rail, bridges, airports, and the latest being natural gas, noting that Nigeria was set to fly on the wings of gas, which is courtesy of the President.

He maintained that President Buhari was steadily and progressively touching different phases of Nigeria’s national life, and causing transformation to occur, despite stiff challenges in the area of security.

The post read: “In the words of Winston Churchill, “Truth is incontrovertible. Ignorance can deride it, panic may resent it, malice may destroy it, but there it is.

“But let me give due credit for the headline of this piece, which is the brainchild of Mr Tony Attah, Managing Director of Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG). At the conference on the Decade of Gas, flagged off by the President on Monday, Attah declared:

“Gas is now everything for Nigeria. We must use what we have to get what we want. Saudi Arabia and Dubai used oil to move their economies to become one of the best in the world. Qatar has used gas to transform from a fishing economy to a global gas giant. Nigeria has both oil and gas.

“However, Nigeria has thus far ridden on the back of oil for over 50 years, but the time has come for Nigeria to FLY on the wings of gas.

“President Buhari, Minister of State for Petroleum, Chief Timipre Sylva, Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mele Kolo Kyari, and Attah of NLNG spoke at the opening ceremony of the conference. An aggregate of the points they collectively made gave a panoramic view of the prospects gas holds for Nigeria.”

Adesina said the submissions from the Decade of Gas Conference was for Nigeria to stimulate economic growth through the further improvement of the energy mix, investments drive, provision of jobs for citizens, gas development and making utilisation a national priority.

Read also: Those calling for Buhari to resign may have questions to answer –Femi Adesina

According to him, the major objective of the President Buhari’s administration was to transform Nigeria into an industrialised nation, with gas playing a major role, noting that the administration has kick-started projects like the National Gas Expansion Program, Auto Gas policy, and the construction of the 614km Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano pipeline.

He said Nigeria has a potential of 600 trillion cubic feet of gas, the most extensive in Africa, and the top 10 globally, noting that NLNG contributes about 1% to the country’s Gross Domestic Product, and has recorded $114 billion in revenues over the years, $9 billion in taxes, $18 billion in dividends to the Federal Government, and $15 billion in Feed Gas Purchase.

However, the post caused a backlash as many Nigerians on the social media platform blasted Adesina for his message, saying he was insulting the sensibility of millions of Nigerians, as “a bad system doesn’t appear wrong to those who benefit from it.”

A Facebook user, Maduka Prinz Arthur, replied to Adesina’s post saying, “With the kinda life that Aso Villa affords you, why wouldn’t you come here to insult the sensibility of millions of suffering Nigerians who are victims of President Buhari’s ineptitude, incompetence and visionlessness. Calling out the failings of the government now tantamounts to hate. Nothing last forever. You will one day be outta government, we will remind you of all these.”

Another user, JohnPaul Chigaemezu Alphred, also replied to the post saying, “Mr Adesina I hope you’re seeing how FFK is today, that’s how u will be tomorrow. Continue with your fabricated lies and deceit someday you will look back and cause yourself and your entire generation for being part of this evil administration.”

Also, a user, Seyi Solaru, replied saying, “We Nigerians are morally confusing. So it is that people may hate or may not hate Buhari is the issue? Not the fact that millions of Nigerians are living in poverty? Is Buhari your father that you are worried about what people say about him?”

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