President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, received Vice President Yemi Osinbajo alongside service chiefs and an FCT delegation, who paid him the traditional Sallah homage.
Buhari, while receiving the guests, said he was pleased with the activities of the vice president and urged him not to relent despite the challenges.
“I want to appreciate the number two man of the country (Osinbajo) because he knows what we are going through very quietly; I am very pleased that you came with this very powerful constituency.
“I appeal to you to remain exemplary so that those under you will know that the country is doing very well.
“If you break down and complain, the impact will reverberate all over and then government will not be popular and whatever efforts we are making will not be appreciated,’’ he said.
According to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Buhari jokingly told Senator Philip Aduda, who was part of the FCT delegation, that his constituency did not vote for him in the last presidential election.
He said, however, that FCT was a strategic part of Nigeria and that securing it would be taken seriously by his administration.
But The Cable reported that the president went further and referred to residents of the federal capital as “necessary evil”.
“I have just spoken to the senator on my left (Philip Aduda) and I told him that his constituency did not vote for me. So, I was very pleased that when they made the arrangement they put him very far away from me,” the president was quoted as saying.
“I have all the results of all constituencies. I am not threatening FCT because to make FCT secure is to make myself secure and the vice-president. I think they know that they are necessary evil that was why they decided to vote for PDP.”
Buhari took the guests down the memory lane of his `long journey’ to Presidency from 2003, 2007, 2011 to 2015, saying they were interesting political developments.
