Dogara
Speaker
of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara has declared that
the 2019 elections would be a referendum on the state of
security and hunger in Nigeria.
Dogara
was speaking in Katungo, Gombe state at an empowerment programme
organized by Hon Binta Bello Monday where he challenged Nigerians to
do a introspection and decide if they have made progress in the
last three and half years or have witnessed a decline in their living
standards on a general basis.
While
lamenting the current state of situations in the country, Dogara
remarked that,
"So
2019 elections is about insecurity, whether we can be secured. Then
look at your own lives, even if nobody loves or likes you, advise
yourself, hold a consultation with yourself, sit down and argue with
yourself, ask yourself what progress you've made in the last three
and a half years? Don't even ask any other person, in case that
person may give you a biased opinion about yourself, but you know
yourself very well, just sit down and if you want assistance, sit
down close to a mirror so that you can see yourself. Compare yourself
the way you look now and the way you looked some three years ago and
then you'll know, and then decide for yourself whether you want to
continue looking like this, that is if it doesn't get worse in the
next four more years. By the time you've finished having that
conversation with yourself, make a decision".
"If
this is the kind of life that you want us to live, if this is the
kind of insecurity you want us to perpetrate for Nigeria. Today in
Nigeria thirteen (13) million of our children are out of
school, one million, three hundred thousand (1.3m) of those children
are from my home state of Bauchi. If we continue like this, the
numbers are bound to increase, and the crisis we will face in the
future will be more than this Boko Haram crisis that we are
witnessing. This is because by refusing to give free and compulsory
education to our children, we are raising an army for insurgency that
will come and consume us as a people.
"So
the vote in 2019 is not about anything, but about you, about you and
about you. Do not make it about any other thing, but about what
progress do you want to make? What kind of country do you want to
raise your children in? What kind of country do you want to live in?
What kind of education do you want to be giving to your children?
"All
these are what we have in the 2019 ballot. And we trust as educated
and enlightened opinionated people, that you'll make the right
choices."
He
lamented that "Boko Haram insurgency is still fresh, in fact in
PDP there was never a time when in one day when more than one hundred
soldiers were killed. In any other country, that would have made
their security forces to declare a national emergency, but here it
didn't happen. God forbid, is that the Nigeria that we want going
forward? Do you know that today, you cannot travel between Kaduna and
Abuja? It is very difficult. Most of the people that can afford it
are always commuting by train, and we thank God for the railways that
was almost 95% completed by the PDP Government, before APC took over.
If you travel by road, there is a 70% chance that you'll be
kidnapped. In those days however kidnapping was very strange in the
Northern part of this country.
He
urged the people of Gombe State not to be tempted to deviate from the
course, which is the PDP that has brought development to Gombe State.
"If
you make the mistake of putting an untested person in the Gombe State
Government House, I tell you that you will regret it. As someone who
has seen the difference, I beg you not to make that mistake, because
we will not join you in crying if you make the mistake," he said
to them.
Speaker
Dogara noted that the current administration has failed in securing
the lives and properties of Nigerians, noting that in spite of all
the blame game, security in its current state is worst than under PDP
rule.
Citing
the case of the killing of more than a hundred soldiers in a day by
Boko Haram insurgents, which he said ought to have led to a national
emergency on security, coupled with the hunger and deprivation in the
country, Hon Dogara said if the APC administration is allowed to
continue in power with the way it is handling security, it would only
be a matter of time before more insurgents rise up to unleash terror
on innocent Nigerians.
Saying
two-thirds of Nigerians can no longer afford three-square meals a
day, he noted that the incidences of criminal attacks have increased
with kidnapping a daily incidence.
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