Why I told Buhari I’m not a magician – Amaechi

The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, on Thursday revealed that President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2015 tasked him to come up with a strategy for reducing the expectations of Nigerians from an All Progressives Congress, APC, government but he told the President that he was not a magician to do that.

The APC 2015 presidential campaign director-general, who made this known while speaking with select journalists in Abuja, said “the problem was the expectations. Most of you, in fact, the president got worried and called me and said ‘Amaechi go and think of how we can reduce the expectation’ but I said, ‘Oga I’m not a magician.!

“That we will bring down the price of fuel, that is determined by market forces. What we are rather doing is what the president said. One reason our economy is not growing is lack of infrastructure.”

Amaechi continued that the APC government needs another four years to surmount the challenges it met in office, insisting that Buhari “is eliminating corruption”.

He said further, “For any reason we lose the election, you the young ones are taking yourselves and Nigeria 10 steps backwards because the elites who left to PDP are waiting in the wind.

“Are we perfect? No. No human is perfect. Are there mistakes? Yes. There is no human being who doesn’t make mistake. Are we on course? Yes. Are the challenges daunting? Yes. Are we going to overcome them? Yes.

“I hope Nigerians remember that by the time we came, we were borrowing money to pay salaries. I hope you people remember that we are not borrowing money to pay salaries, we are using our money.

“If we are not borrowing to pay salaries, it means we are generating our own money. I hope Nigerians remember during the past government oil was at 110, 120 dollars. But when we came in oil was $58. The highest that we have gotten is the mistake that happened in the last two weeks that it rose to 70 or 80 after one day it came down to 50-something, instantly.”