Buhari says it’s harsh to judge me by my 1984 record, meets with Catholic Bishops to allay fears on religion

The APC presidential candidate, Gen. Buhari said it would be harsh to judge him against his record as a military dictator in a democratic setting just as he last night welcomed former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s endorsement of his aspiration.

Speaking on a live CNN interview anchored by Christiane Amanpour, he affirmed that the Boko Haram insurgency would be routed by his administration through blocking corruption and other leakages.

Tasked that Nigerians were faced with the difficult option of choosing between a failed president and a former military dictator with a bad human rights record, he said:

“All those things you mentioned were done under military administration; if we did not suspend the constitution then, it would have been difficult for us to operate under those circumstances. So I do not think I should be judged as an individual for those things that happened then.”

Welcoming the endorsement of President Obasanjo, he said: “Well it will certainly bring more supporters to us and more confidence for those who were sitting on the fence because General Obasanjo is highly respected and as far as the nation is concerned, there is no issue that can be deliberated upon without people seeking his opinion.”

Describing the shift of the election dates as unfortunate, Buhari said:

“That is a disappointment because the presentation made by the INEC was that they were ready to conduct the elections on the date chosen a year ago. And for them to be forced virtually by the military that they cannot guarantee the safety of their workers and shift it by six weeks.”

Meanwhile, the presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress, APC, General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), has re-affirmed his commitment to ensure that Nigeria remained a multi-religious state where every individual was free to practice his religion of choice.
Buhari who spoke at an “Episcopal” Town Hall Conversation with representatives of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria in Abuja stated that although he had been severally and consistently vilified and maligned, he had no personal religious agenda, neither would he support any moves by anybody or group of persons to either Christianise or Islamise Nigeria.
In his speech, titled “One Nation bound in Freedom, Peace, Unity and Love”, Buhari, who was accompanied to the event by his running mate, Pastor Yemi Osinbajo, the Director General of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Governor Rotimi Amaechi, and a host of other members of the party’s presidential campaign, said he “will not condone any initiative that seeks to promote one religion over the other.”
Earlier in his welcome speech, President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, Bishop Ignatius Kaigama, who is also the Archbishop of Jos, said the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria believed in the unity and progress of Nigeria. He regretted the wide communication gap existing between the leaders and the people, hoping that the conversation was an indication of the willingness to establish a sustainable communication platform.