Address by General Muhammadu Buhari, Presidential Candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, at the Public Presentation of the CPC Election Manifesto in Lagos. April 6, 2011.
Making Nigeria Work Once Again
 
It gives me great pleasure to have this opportunity of standing before you this morning to say a few words about our party and what plans we have for you and the nation in our manifesto. Let me therefore begin by welcoming all of you to the event.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the CPC Election Manifesto which sets out our election promises and plan of action. Its central and urgent message is that as Nigerians, we mustrestructure the country and change our ways. And in this there is an invitation to each and every one of us to come forward and join the struggle, so that together we take the destiny of this nation in our hands—and change it into a united, prosperous, caring, truly democratic Federal republic.
But before we will be able to do this, we must secure,manage and govern the country in a way that releases the energies and potentials of our people and direct these to wholesome ends. Giving this direction is what a CPC government is here to do in order to arrest the nation’s aimless drift.
In its 12 years of misgovernance the government of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, had bastardised the nation. In all this period, it has done very little that is right, even less that is proper, and nothing intrinsically useful or cost-effective.
 
It was as if they only came to pauperise the nation; and it could be said that during their time, the only places that prospered were the cemeteries and the bank accounts of a thieving elite. People in their thousands died due to poverty, hunger, disease and violent crises and violent crimes, as custodians of the nation’s resources smiled their ways to the bank.
The wealth, which would have alleviated the people’spoverty; the food, which would have satiated their hunger; and money for drugs, which would have restored them to health; and the resources for the maintenance of law and order, which would have ensured the security of the land, have all been siphoned by this insensitive leadership.
As a result, today, we cannot sleep safely in our beds or drive in safety on our highways in safety. Without power, without water and without good roads, we lack all the things other normal societies take for granted.
We all know the problems of this country, and we have known them for the past 12 years ago and before; but, apparently, it is only now that the PDP is becoming aware of them, saying that it will try to solve them. So, where was the so-called largest political party south of the Sahara during the last 12 years? What stopped people of the ruling party from giving the nation electric power, something they promised to do after six months of coming to power?
What stopped them from securing the nation from communal, religious and political violence and from the new wave of terrorism? How many years do they need to do that?
 
And after this glaring failure they even had the temerity to ask for your votes. How on earth can anyone consider giving his vote to the PDP? Who in his right mind will consider four more years of this open thievery? Who in his senses will elect four more years of betrayal of trusts? Or four moreyears of broken promises? Or four more years of a collapsed and collapsing system? Or four more years of economic mismanagement?
Ladies and gentlemen, I am Muhammadu Buhari, and today I am 69 years old; and I am sure I don’t have to remind you that I have fought many battles in my life. I have fought drift and purposelessness in this nation. I have fought corruption and indiscipline. I have fought indolence and the betrayal of trusts. I have fought the Nigerian civil war and struggled for the unity of this country in many other ways.
I have had the fortune and privilege of managing national resources in various capacities—as a military commander, as a state governor, as a minister, as head of the Petroleum Trust Fund, and as the head of state of this great country. And in all that I have been and done, I have never touched a kobo of public funds.
I say this without pride and with all sense of responsibility and humility; but I challenge anyone in the race for the leadership of this country then or now to dare make the same claim.
After being head of state, I am sure I could easily have retired into a life of comfort and ease as an elder statesman, as a contractor or as a beneficiary of any one of the nation’s many generous prebendal offerings. But that is not what I wish to do with my life.
And so, if I don’t take any of these alternative courses of action, it should be clear that I am not in this for the love of office or for pursuit after personal glory or in order to achieve some personal goal. Far be it from me that this should be. I need nothing and I have nothing more to prove. I am in this solely for the love of my country and concern for its destiny and the fate of its people.
And that is why, despite the many disappointments along the way, I am still in the struggle and will remain in it to the end. I have decided to dedicate the remainder of my life to fighting for the people of this country—until their right is restored to them.
We call on you to join us and change the destiny of this nation. And change is what CPC is all about. I am sure you will all agree with me that the question is not whether there we should change, because change we must.
The only questions remaining are determining the type of change and the speed with which that change will be implemented. To effect this, we have assembled a team of competent, experienced and patriotic Nigerians to become the vanguard of the change to get the country out the woods andaway from the malaise that has kept it down.
We are on a rescue mission to recreate Nigeria and transform it into a powerful and prosperous nation. Our focus will be on improving the efficiency of national economic management; and the reintroduction of national economic development planning and the plan to successfully manage change.
The area of emphasis of our government will be on the following five: ensuring security, in which a CPC government will seek the disarmament of all criminal gangs in the nation and securing the entire polity; raising the standard of education and providing quality services at all itslevels; the aggressive pursuit after youth development and youth employment generation; rehabilitating dilapidatedinfrastructure; and the total disarming of the Niger Delta, finding solutions to its social problems and laying down acomprehensive blueprint for the development of the area.
Along the way, we also intend to make this nation accountable and corruption-free, and bring morality back to governance. We shall make this nation uncomfortable to those who do not wish to play by the rules.
We shall challenge vested interests and erase unearned privileges. Propriety and legality will be our new watchwords; and, hopefully, in time this will become the new business as usual for the nation.

It goes without saying that this nation must be set free—from the clutches of a corrupt culture that has stunted the growth and development of democracy. A CPC government will seek to entrench democratic values, uphold the rule of law, respect the independence of the judiciary, and enforce the political nceutrality of public service.

It is our undertaking that after just one term in office, a CPC government will entrench a new democratic culture that will be impossible to dismantle even by the most tough-minded anti-democrats.

We have set our priorities and we shall pursue them relentlessly. I urge you to read our manifesto and see what we have planned for this nation. And when you do so, you will see why, in the circumstance, the only sensible thing to do—is to vote for my party, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC. It is a young party but it has already set all the others to flight. It will change the way politics is practiced in this country.
 
 
Our enterprise is truly an ambitious one. It is not just about winning an election: it is about restoring a sense of decency to our society. It is about taking pride in, and respecting,ourselves as human beings and consciously internalising democratic values. Unless we do this, development and true freedom will forever elude us and talents will never flower in the land. But if the answer is democracy, what exactly is the question? The question is: Why are we still not properly practicing it? And that is where CPC comes in—to provide the missing link. And with your support we shall begin to do just that in the next couple of weeks. 

Thank you very much for your patience and attention.

The choice of retaining and maintaining the status quo is left for Nigerians to make.

The error of 4years ago need to be corrected and your vote is the tool.

If the change Buhari represented then in 2011 was allowed to manifest, by now we could have been taking stocks and be asserting if he had performed creditably to warrant entrusting his party with a second term or not in 2015.

If the vices he campaigned Against in 2011 still lives and has even grown into a hydra headed monster 4 years after then we have no complain because he had warned us. The past is past.

The future beckons, 2015 is a time to make amend, correct the mistake of 2011 and move the ship of this nation forward.

The ball is in your court Nigerians.

Buhari for change
Buhari for President

To the mod banning my moniker pendy79, keep doing it, I enjoy the fact you're getting jittery by the contribution of the progressives on this forum, just bear with me till February 2015, I will gladly leave your forum for you when the change we yearn for in Nigeria is enthroned.

Sai Buhari 2015, the leader who is articulate, resourceful.and sound.

Vote for change vote Buhari

Our Nation will go back to the time it was working and the wind of change is blowing across the federation.