“I will remain a friend to Ndigbo” – Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari has described the rumors that he’s against the Igbo people as lies, saying he’ll “remain a friend to Ndigbo,” Punch reports.

President Buhari said this at a special empowerment programme for widows at Ebonyi State, organised by the Chinedu Ogah Foundation, where he was represented by the Executive Director in charge of Administration/Training, Nigeria Television Authority, Steve Egbo.

He said if he hated the Igbo people, he would not have picked Chuba Okadigbo as his running mate in 2003. He said:

All these accusations, permutations are all lies calculated to create bad feelings of Igbo people.

I will remain a friend to Ndi’Igbo. I recall that in 2002, I invited the late Ikemba Chukwuemeka Ojukwu to my hometown of Daura. We discussed about the unity and indivisibility of Nigeria.

In 2003, I picked Dr. Chuba Okadigbo as my running mate in that year’s presidential election. If I hated Nd’Igbo, I wouldn’t have done that.

In 2017, the Federal Government under my leadership commenced work on the Second Niger Bridge following its abandonment by the previous governments all these years.