Nigerians Passing Through Hard Times But Still Believe In Buhari – Ndume

Ali NdumeThe Senate leader, Ali Ndume, has faulted the recent poll conducted by the Governance Advancement Initiative for Nigeria (GAIN), which showed that President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval ratings dropped from 63.4 per cent in January to 32.8 per cent.

The senator representing Borno South on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC, noted that the 32.8 per cent captured in the survey that disproved the president’s popularity rating, do not form the support base of the present administration.

According to Ndume, the APC-led federal government came to power on the back of majority support, the masses, who he said do not have access to be surveyed in the poll by GAIN.

“So, that survey cannot reflect the wish of the majority of the Nigerian population. Yes, things are difficult, Nigerians are going through difficult times, but they are the support base of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and have not lost faith in this government. If you go to various churches and mosques, you’ll still find people saying, ‘we are suffering but we should endure because the result will come’”, the senator said in an interview with Daily Trust on Saturday.

He continued: “If you say the popularity of government has gone down from those you’ve access to get their responses, well, I agree with that, but the majority of Nigerians, who are the poor, still have faith in this government, and that is the most important thing. Yes, people are going through hard times but the government is working; working in the sense that it’s still focused on the three key issues that it came in with, and is still focused to address”.

Ndume listed the three core areas the Buhari administration is focusing on as security, infrastructure and anti-corruption war.

On security, the Senate leader said, “you’ll agree that it is not only in the Northeast in terms of winning the war against insurgency and specifically Boko Haram; the government is fighting other wars in terms of kidnapping, armed robbery and vandalization of pipelines. The bunkering of our crude oil has gone down, but nobody is talking about that. The vandalization of oil pipelines you will now only hear intermittently, which is normal in every society.

“The militancy in the Niger Delta has gone down tremendously. Even the so-called Biafra struggle is personalized and centered on Kanu, and when Kanu was arrested – and he is presently going through trial – it went down. So, government is working in the area of security.

“Government is also working in the area of putting certain infrastructures on ground; government is working and fighting corruption which is a big problem. Government came in and removed subsidy indirectly and yet, petroleum products are available all over the country at a lower price.