Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, on Monday called on Nigerian youths to vote President Muhammadu Buhari in for a second term to ensure a better future for them.
Amaechi, who was a guest at the 2018 Future Awards in Lagos, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the future of the youth was at stake if they failed to support the incumbent administration.
He warned that voting for candidates who had no good intention for the growing population of young Nigerians would be tantamount to a plunge into a bleak future.
“I only have a simple but candid advice to Nigerian youths and that is: come 2019 elections, they should vote for Buhari because their future is at stake.
“I became Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly at the age of 34, I became the governor at the age of 42 and I became a minister of the Federal Republic at 50.
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“We cannot afford to truncate our future for a piece of meat; we should be watchful because those people who stole our money and commonwealth are regrouping to come back to perpetrate their act.
“These people want to continue from where they were stopped from looting the treasury, when oil was sold at between 110 and 120 US dollars,’’ he said.
The minister said that some of those parading themselves as political aspirants had “corruption cases hanging on their necks’’, adding that the youths must be wary of such candidates.
“If those that have stolen our money are yet to be jailed, it is because there is a process we have to follow and that is the rule of law; most of them have cases in court.
“The court will deliver judgment on them, as we cannot be the judge and prosecutor in the cases. The important thing is that they are being prosecuted.
“We are building a legacy for the youth and that is what we want to continue, I have gone through elections as a young citizen and I know what this means to the youth.
“The economy is growing steadily and by the end of the year, we would have achieved a two-per-cent growth and by next year, we hope to arrive at six per cent,” he said.
Besides, Amaechi said that the Buhari-administration would continue accord priority to the country’s rail transport development project, adding that it was a massive project involving about 6,000 km of railways.
“It is critical that we conclude the rail project embarked upon by this administration; it involves about 6,000km of rail lines and an estimated investment of about 36 billion dollars.
“Our government don’t have that kind of money to face it all now but we will eventually get there, and we will achieve the desired result with the available resources, he said. (NAN)
