Following scathing criticisms and mockery that followed the spin one of his aides and supporters tried to put on his decision to walk 800 meters from the prayer ground to his home in Daura, Katsina State, on Eid el Kabir day, President Muhammadu Buhari, Friday, explained why he did the trek.
\nAnd it had nothing to do with proving a point as to his fitness for the 2019 election.
\nAccording to a statement by his spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu, \u00a0the President in Daura broached the issue of his trek and the controversy it generated.
\nIn a meeting with representatives of the five local governments in Daura Emirate, the President Buhari explained that the walk was not about proving his fitness level or scoring cheap political capital.
\n\u2018\u2018This is my constituency, the people came out in their large numbers to see me and the car in which I was being driven had tinted windows.
\n\u2018\u2018They were not seeing me so I came down so they could see me. I didn\u2019t need to convince anyone about my health and the decision to contest for a second term- a decision that I made public in April this year,\u2019\u2019 he said.
\nThe President used the opportunity of his meeting with his kinsmen to inform them that he has directed the Ministry of Agriculture and the CBN to review the processes on the issuance of loans to smallholder farmers.
\n\u2018\u2018We want to make it easier for them to assess the loans, particularly the underprivileged people in the society. It has become necessary for the government to do this because banks will insist on collaterals which majority of farmers do not have.
\n\u2018\u2018For our agriculture policy to succeed, we must be able to reach small farm holders with loans without collaterals.\u00a0 Collaterals are always a problem with smallholder farmers,\u2019\u2019 he said.
\nThe President also highlighted the achievements of the administration on local rice productions which had expectedly led to the reduction of imports by over 90 percent.
\nThe President expressed delight that young people are returning to the farms and reaffirmed the Federal government\u2019s commitment to implement policies to promote agriculture.
\nSpeaking on behalf of the civil society groups in Daura Emirate, the spokesman of the group, Yusuf Bello Maiadua, applauded the President on his numerous achievements.
\n\u2018\u2018You have made us proud, the economy is back on the path of growth and you have laid a solid foundation for the development of the country.
\nMaiadua who hinted the President of plans by the Daura Emirate to organise a massive rally for his 2019 campaign, as soon as the ban on political campaign is lifted, invited him to make out time to attend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Following scathing criticisms and mockery that followed the spin one of his aides and supporters tried to put on his decision to walk 800 meters from the prayer ground to his home in Daura, Katsina State, on Eid el Kabir day, President Muhammadu Buhari, Friday, explained why he did the trek. And it had nothing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":11591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}