TheCable

President Muhammadu Buhari says it will require more than one election cycle to build Nigeria and deliver the promised change.

Buhari said this on Monday while delivering a lecture at the Island Club, Lagos.

The lecture was delivered on behalf of the president by Babatunde Fashola, minister of power, works and housing.

Buhari said the change promised by his government is not “an event but a process” and would require time to deliver.

While urging Nigerians to re-elect him, the president gave the assurance that the “fruits of the efforts” he has made in fixing the country in the last three and a half years would soon begin to manifest

“It took more than one term and one election cycle of the chairman of Island Club to build this hall just as it will require more than one election cycle to build the nation and deliver change,” he said.

“The process of change and reform did not happen because Island Club did anything; it happened because people, members of the club, and I believe, non-members, who were men of goodwill, chose to act.”

Buhari said he has put the country on the path of food security by banning the importation of rice despite opposition “who frustrated earlier government food security policies such as Operation Feed the Nation and the Green Revolution”.

He said his reforms in the power sector have led to improved power supply which has rubbed off on small-scale businesses.

“It is because of these small business owners, hard-working Nigerians that I am offering myself to serve for one more time,” Buhari said.