Nigeria will go 10 steps backwards if Buhari loses in 2019 - Amaechi

Are we perfect? No. No human is perfect. Are there mistakes? Yes. There is no human being who doesn’t make mistake. Are we on course? Yes. Are the challenges daunting? Yes. Are we going to overcome them? Yes will.

- The minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has declared that corruption would return to Nigeria if Buhari loses 2019 elections

- He said Nigeria would go 10 steps backwards if the president loses in 2019

- The SGF had on Thursday, February 15, said that Buhari would seek re-election next year

The minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has said that corruption will return to the country “automatically” if Nigerians vote out President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019.

NAIJ.com reports that he said if the All Progressives Congress (APC) loses the 2019 election, Nigeria would be taken 10 steps backwards.

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The minister said this while speaking with select journalists in Abuja on Thursday, February 15.

Amaechi said the APC government needs another four years to surmount the challenges it met in office.

While admitting that the Buhari administration has made mistakes, he said that the president “is eliminating corruption.”

“For any reason we lose election, you the young ones are taking yourselves and Nigeria 10 steps backwards because the elites who left to through PDP are waiting in the wind,” the minister said.

“Are we perfect? No. No human is perfect. Are there mistakes? Yes. There is no human being who doesn’t make mistake. Are we on course? Yes. Are the challenges daunting? Yes. Are we going to overcome them? Yes.

“I hope Nigerians remember that by the time we came, we were borrowing money to pay salaries. I hope you people remember that we are not paying money to pay salaries, we are using our money.

“If we are not borrowing to pay salaries, it means we are generating our own money. I hope Nigerians remember under the past government oil was at 110, 120.

"But when we came oil was $58. The highest that we have gotten is the mistake that happened in the last two weeks that it rose to 70 or 80 after one day it came down to 50-something, instantly.”

Amaechi said in the buildup to the 2015 election, Buhari called him to consider a strategy for reducing the expectations of Nigerians from an APC government.

“The problem was the expectations. Most of you, in fact, the president got worried and he called me and said ‘Amaechi go and think of how we reduce the expectation’ but I said, ‘Oga I’m not a magician’,” the minister said.

“That we will bring down the price of fuel, that is determined by market forces. What we are rather doing is what the president said. One reason our economy is not growing is lack of infrastructure."

On Maradi - Kano rail, Amaechi said that: "Currently, Niger Republic, Chad and others have abandoned the Nigerian market. They do not use our sea ports again. They go to countries like Benin Republic and they are growing the economy of those people and we do not have deep seaports in Nigeria. Benin Republic is the first to build deep seaport in Nigeria.

"Nigeria is the only country in West Africa without a single window which allows the clearance of goods on the same day of arrival. Nigerians are now importing through Benin Republic, Lome and Ghana because they have a single window.

"The huge corruption in the system has made it impossible for us to adopt the single window. It is this government that is trying to this and for the past two years, this has been impossible.

"The Niger government is not contributing to the project and the do not need to do so. We have to also provide the same infrastructure that makes them go to other countries for business. Those countries already have the access and that is why Niger can go there go there for business.

"We are not competitive for two reasons. Our police checkpoints from Lagos to Kano, Kano to Maradi. If we are going to be competitive like others, then we must have the same infrastructures that they have. With trains, there are no checkpoints thereby making the movement of people and goods faster than road. Also, Maradi is just a border town not a like it is deep into the town.

Speaking on the government's achievements, Amaechi noted that: "We’re putting in N56 million monthly on the Abuja-Kaduna rail and getting only N16 million.

"We have also increased the coaches and locomotives on the Abuja-Kaduna rail thereby curbing the issue of ticket racketeering.

Amaechi is the immediate past governor of Rivers state. He also served as the campaign director of Buhari in 2015.

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Although Buhari has yet to publicly declare his intention to seek re-election, insiders have said Amaechi has been appointed to lead the campaign again.

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com had earlier reported that the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha on Thursday, February 15, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari will seek re-election in 2019.

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Source: Naija.ng