By Emeka Mamah

ENUGU—The Buhari Support Organisation, BSO, has appealed to Ndigbo to love and support President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in the New Year as Buhari “neither hates nor discriminates” against them, just as he would not Islamise the country as  erroneously believed.

The BSO said Buhari has been demonstrating his love for the Igbo through “the on-going construction of the dilapidated federal roads in the South East and the abandoned 2nd Niger Bridge,” over which  approval of additional N16 billion was made by the Federal Executive Council, adding that the construction works were going on in top gear.

This was contained in a New Year message signed by the Publicity Secretary of BSO, Mr Chibueze Eze.

Buhari

The statement read in part: “President Buhari has so far lived up to his campaign promises to the people of the South-East zone and is ready to do more if given support.

“We are witnesses to the truism that he neither hates Ndigbo nor is he going to Islamise Nigeria as advocated by some ethnic merchants. We had wished that ex-President Goodluck Jonathan had placed the Second Niger Bridge on direct federal contract list like the Owete Bridge in Benue, instead of adopting the PPP model as this could have made the project cheaper and faster.”

According to him, “the Buhari-led All Progressives Congress, APC, administration had achieved in 24 months what its predecessor, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, led federal government failed to do on the roads in the South-East region including the Aba-Calabar; Umuahia-Ikot Ekpene;  Owerri-Port Harcourt; Enugu-Onitsha and the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressways in 16 years; when Igbo men and women like Senator Pius Anyim Pius and Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala served as both Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Minister of Finance and Coordinator of the Economy.”

The BSO also said that it was in a period “when we had Deputy Senate President and Deputy Speaker” among others.    “For the first time in over 16 years, our people in the South-East are happy with the intensification of work along Enugu-Onitsha and other federal roads, which were dilapidated and in a state of disrepair for almost two decades.

“The rehabilitation work for instance on the Enugu-Onitsha road is being handled by RCC Limited, a reputable construction company in the country. One lane is now fully functional while work has seriously progressed on the other lane.”