I Am A Converted Democrat – Buhari

The president-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, has described himself as a converted democrat after seizing power as a military head of state in the country 32 years ago.

Buhari made this statement during his first exclusive interview since his election with the CNN network.

When reminded that he came to power through a military coup, banned political meetings, restricted press freedom and set up secret tribunals, executing people for crimes that were not capital crimes when he was the head of state in the 80s, he replied that his regime did them under a military dispensation but that he had since reformed into a democrat.

Buhari said: “The only thing you haven’t said is that I did all those things you allege under military administration and, since then, I am a converted democrat and I attempted to attain this office three times and third times I ended in the highest court, in the Supreme Court.

“And the allegations that people were executed for offences that are not death sentence, I think you are wrong. When we came into power in December 1983, we decided to use death sentence on traffickers. So we made the law before people were prosecuted.’’

He also pledged that his administration would give full attention to restoring security and ‘’face Boko Haram insurgency squarely,’’ noting that Nigerian had enough troops to rout the insurgents.

He, however, declared that the security agencies had initially been inhibited by corruption in their fight against Boko Haram.

‘’The Nigerian soldiers, acting outside of ethical expectations, were giving interviews to foreign journalists; they were being sent to face the terrorists but lacked of adequate weapons, training and leadership.

‘’I know the National Assembly attempted to carry out a hearing to know how much was budgeted for weapons and training in the last three and four years and they wanted to invite the Service Chiefs and the Chief of Defence Staff but that hearing was cancelled by the administration. So the performance of the military was affected by corruption in the system,” the incoming president said. (Leadership)