President Muhammadu Buhari received a boost on Friday as a group of octogenarians, Southwest Veterans and Concerned Patriotic Elders’ (SouthWest-V and PE), on Friday held a rally in support successes against terrorism and insurgency.
The rally which started from Freedom Park, Ojota, Lagos ended at Lagos Government House with scores of elderly Nigerians paying glowing tributes to the Nigerian Army and its leadership.
Addressing the newsmen in Ikeja, the National President of SouthWest-V and PE, Elder Johnson Adebayo, stated Buhari had conquered terrorism “like Moses did in the Bible”.
According to him, the President has liberated several communities held by the insurgents in the same method the Biblical Moses liberated the Israelites from their Egyptian captors.
“We have seen a repeat of Moses’ leadership of the Israelites in their most difficult times reflected in the present leadership of our cherished country Nigeria by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“He has played the role of the Chief armour bearer of the defeat of the enemies of Nigeria, as directed by God.
“The idea of this elaborate thousand-man rally march from us, Nigerians of septuagenarian and octogenarian ages is to drum support for President Buhari’s rewarding leadership.
“It is also our token of open appreciation of the Nigerian military for their courageous demystification of the formerly deified Boko Haram insurgents,” Adebayo stated.
The octogenarian also thanked Buhari for the various reforms introduced, saying they had reduced corruption in the public service to the barest minimum.
“It has erased the bottlenecks strewn on the path of elderly citizens of this great nation in accessing their retirement entitlements.
“Our President is leading Nigeria on a progressive path in many ways. Some of us are proud beneficiaries of his welfare schemes like the Conditional Cash Transfers to the aged and less privileged Nigerians under his Social Investment Programme.
“The school feeding programme for our children in primary schools throughout the federation is one other unquantifiable assistance to the elderly.
” This has has lifted the burden of searching our pockets and bags every morning to find feeding cash for our school children,” he stated.
According to him, the group cannot overlook President Buhari’s resuscitation of collapsed infrastructure in the nation.
“The railway is back; our refineries are back; textile and automobile industries are brimming with life now.
“Youths are being empowered via N-Power jobs, and dilapidated roads we never dreamt of seeing their rehabilitation in our lifetime have come to reality.
“We travel on it, but our old and tired bones don’t get cracking with ache.”
He also commended the Service Chiefs for their splendid everyday leadership of the military, resulting in the spectacular job of defeating Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria.
