The president of the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, Chinonso Obasi has issued a statement saying that he spoke with the Nigerian Presidency while he was in London on Sunday, July 23, 2017 and he is convinced that ailing President Muhammadu Buhari would be returning to Nigeria “soon”.
In an email to The Trent on Monday, July 24, 2017, Obasi said that during his conversations with the presidency, he realised that “Nigerians need more love to survive the machinations of the ungodly, the desperadoes and ill wishes gradually being orchestrated by those whose love is not for our teeming citizens but themselves”.
Curiously, the NANS president failed to indicate where or how he had the conversation with the presidency and which official in the presidency he had the conversations with.
From the content of his message, there is no new information. The Nigerian presidency had already sponsored stories in online tabloids last week saying that President Buhari would return to Nigeria on January 27, 2017. That’s two days from today.
Below is the full text of the statement.
My conversation with the Presidency yesterday in London at about 2:17pm Nigerian time has given more hope that President Muhammad Buhari will soon be back, alive and able to return to his presidential seat.
In the course of conversation, I realized that Nigerians need more love to survive the machinations of the ungodly, the desperadoes and ill wishes gradually being orchestrated by those whose love is not for our teeming citizens but themselves.
This is the time Nigerians have to be more patriotic than political as issues of national interest should be more paramount and the President’s health considered as a national frailty that we as a people and a nation can overcome.
Let me on behalf of teeming Nigerian students, the most marginalized in the nation, appeal to Nigerians and particularly those in positions of trust to be objective in carrying out any obligation assigned to them in national interest. In the same vein, individual players and stakeholders in the polity should thread with caution as the progress, unity and peace of our dear nation is non-negotiable.
PMB is our father and deserves our goodwill and solidarity, if by any reason we’re not comfortable with his absence due to medical vacation, let every Nigerian observe due process in their agitation.
The demands of Nigerian Students was unveiled on 19/7/17 in commemoration of one year in office of the current NANS leadership under my able stewardship as the National President of NANS.
We do hope the Government of PMB will find the Mini compendium, our ‘irreducible minimum’ demand in the education sector most useful in addressing the ills in the education sector for a functional education system in Nigeria.
With our overwhelming membership strength of over 40.1million Nigerian students, ordinarily, we should be the highest noise makers and agitators but neither have we chosen to be restless rather being diplomatic, civil and patriotic as our nation struggles through these trying times and wish to send this as a signal to those disrupting the peace of Nigeria to remember that there is no other nation we have other than Nigeria -our fatherland.
Come. Chinonso Obasi, GCNS
National President, NANS
