Buhari addressed Nigerians in a national broadcast on the eve of Tinubu’s inauguration. President Muhammadu Buhari has made his farewell broadcast to Nigerians as he gets set to hand over the baton of power to President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
In the broadcast aired on the morning of Sunday, May 28, 2023, the President highlighted some of the achievements of his government in the last eight years, while also acknowledging that improvement is needed in certain areas.
Above all, he apologized to Nigerians who were negatively impacted by some of the economic decisions he made but insisted that those decisions were made with the good intention to strengthen the economy.
You can read his full speech below;
My fellow Nigerian brothers, sisters, and friends of Nigeria.
2. I address you today, in my last assignment as a democratically elected President of our great and well-endowed nation, with a deep sense of gratitude to God, a great deal of appreciation to the Nigerian people, and a modest sense of fulfillment.
3. Today we mark and celebrate another peaceful transition of power from one elected government to another in our steady march to improve and sustain Nigeria’s democracy.
4. This year we witnessed the most keenly contested Presidential Elections since the first Republic and this demonstrates that our democracy is getting better and more entrenched with each election.
5. We must as a nation improve and sustain gains we make in the electoral process, on an incremental basis for Nigeria to take its rightful place among Nations.
6. Our democracy provides for, allows, and encourages seeking redress for perceived injustices, enabling some candidates and political parties that did not agree with the results to go to court.
7. Irrespective of the outcome of the various cases, I urge all parties involved to accept the decision of our courts and join hands to build a better Nigeria.
8. I salute the doggedness and resilience of all the Presidential Candidates and their political parties for believing in our judicial system by taking their grievances with the election results to court.
9. In the course of the campaigns, we had argued and disagreed on how to make Nigeria better but we never disagreed or had any doubts that Nigeria has to be better.
10. As your President, I call on all of us to bring to bear the strength of our individualism, the power of our unity, and the convictions of our beliefs to make Nigeria work better and together with one spirit and one purpose.
11. To my brother, friend, and fellow worker in the political terrain for the past ten years – Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu -, I congratulate you on the realization of your dream, which was propelled by a burning passion to put Nigeria amongst the leading nations of the world.
12. You have indeed worked for this day and God has crowned your efforts. I have no doubt that your passion for excellence, reliance on competence, fairness in relationships, commitment to equity, loyalty to the country and desire for Nigeria to be globally relevant would come through for you, under God’s guidance, as you lead our country to levels higher that I am leaving.
13. You are the best candidate among all the contestants and Nigerians have chosen well.
14. The last eight years have been an exciting experience in my desire and commitment to see a Nigeria in which public goods and services are available and accessible within a united, peaceful, and secure nation.
15. Fellow Nigerians, on the strength of your overwhelming support for me and my political party, I started this journey with a great deal of promise and expectation from you. I never intended to be just politically correct but to do the correct things that will make a meaningful impact on the lives of the common Nigerian.
