NO TALKS WITH INSURGENTS - BUHARI

The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, on Thursday said he would not grant amnesty to Boko Haram insurgents if elected President next month.
He also said he is fit and ready for the poll.

The former head of state assured the audience that Nigeria will not break.
Buhari, who made the submissions during a question and answer session at Chatham House in London, said he would also personally lead the battle against Boko Haram.
He said: “I think I will not go to that office with that promise. I have said in my address how, at least 13,000 Nigerians have been killed by Boko Haram, how millions of them have been displaced and are now kept in different camps called Internally Displaced Persons camps.
“Schools have been burnt, there is so much disruption to normal life, people could not farm and where they are able to farm, they cannot harvest. So, granting amnesty to Boko Haram will be unfair to the system.
“We will secure Nigeria. We must have the time to collect enough intelligence to make sure that those that we got are given the chance in civil courts to be properly prosecuted.”
On his alleged health challenge, Buhari said he is fit as fiddle and battle ready for the March poll.
He added: “I am very happy that I have been able to visit 35 states out of the 36. I haven’t broken down even though somebody announced my death yesterday (Wednesday).
“I had a call from Maiduguri that somebody rushed into a friend’s house crying and said they have just announced that Buhari has died in hospital in London and so, he called me and I laughed my head off.
“Certainly, I will be expecting too much if I don’t expect people to wish me dead. But I am very pleased that I am fit, the doctors have declared me fit and I am going back for the final onslaught.”
Responding to a question, Buhari said Nigeria cannot afford to break up again as a nation because its nationalities have bonded.
He said: “I appreciate the full import of this question. We have a problem as a people and if you are following my statements, I warned about six months ago that we have to be careful of Somalialization of Nigeria.
“We are a group of nationalities like some people wants to call it. We are very different people, religiously, culturally and from different background and we happen to have come together after the amalgamation by the British in 1914.
“We find it difficult to separate now because there have been so many inter-marriages and some, we have become interdependent. Our constitution has been very deliberate in respecting our sensitivities and the freedom given in that constitution is a guarantee that we will certainly manage our differences.
“We are making a lot of efforts to make sure that we continue to understand ourselves and accommodate ourselves in spite of whatever impression is created among ourselves especially when people are talking so much about religion.”
The APC presidential candidate also spoke on his top three priorities to attract foreign investment.
Buhari said: “Nobody will take his investment to an environment that is insecure. That is why security is going to be one of our major priorities. We will secure the country and efficiently manage it. That efficient management is stopping corruption and getting jobs among others.
“The way of attracting investors is to persuade investors the world over that Nigeria is poised to cooperate with them by securing the country and helping them recoup their investment. It is not a question of having a free ride. They don’t invest for humanitarian reasons, but so that they can recover their capital and make some profit because that is what sustains them.
“So, we have to think very quickly and put in place assurances and improve the system so that the environment can be suitable for investment.”