What I told Trump over allegation of Christian killings —Buhari

Etim Ekpimah

President Muhammadu Buhari, says the United States President, Donald Trump, once called him into his office at the White House and asked him, “Why are you killing Christians?”

Buhari said though he was pained by the allegation, he took his time to explain to his US counterpart that the killings of Christians in Nigeria “has got nothing to do with ethnicity or religion.”

Buhari said he told Trump that the problem stemmed from constant clashes between cattle-herders and farmers, describing it as a “cultural” problem.

He blamed the farmer-herder clashes on “climate change and population growth” as well as the “leadership failure” of previous governments.

Buhari said this on Tuesday in Abuja at the First Year Ministerial Performance Review Retreat of his second term.

Buhari had won his re-election in 2019 after defeating the opposition People’s Democratic Party’s candidate, Atiku Abubakar, with about four million votes in the February 23 poll.

On August 21, 2019, he constituted his second-term cabinet and had last month listed 35 policies, programmes and projects as his second-term achievements.

The First Year Ministerial Performance Review Retreat focused on the examination of the performance of ministers and other officials in the President’s cabinet.

The President on Tuesday said, “I believe I was about the only African amongst the least developed countries that the President of the United States invited and when I was in his office, only myself and himself, only God is a witness, he looked at me in the face and said, ‘Why are you killing Christians?’

“I wondered if it were you, I wondered how you will react. I hope what I was feeling inside did not betray me before him. So, I understood it.

“The problem between cattle-rearers and stagnant farmers, I know which is older than me, not to talk of him, because I think I’m a couple of years older than him, were happening. And there was climate change and population growth.

“I tried to explain to him that it has got nothing to do with ethnicity or religion. It is a cultural thing which respective leaderships failed the nation.”
[12:38, 9/8/2020] Etim Ekpimah: FG, states, LGs share N3.88trn in six months —NEITI

It attributed the 0.55 per cent decrease in Q2 2020 to a couple of factors such as the rebound in oil prices in the second quarter as a result of ease of lockdowns by countries across the world.

Others include the adjustment of the official exchange rate by the Central Bank of Nigeria from N307 per dollar to N360 per dollar in March resulting in higher naira disbursements.

NEITI also disclosed that from January to May 2020, actual government revenue was N1.62trn, representing 62 per cent of the expected pro-rata revenue of N2.62trn from the revised budget.