President Muhammadu Buhari has asked for more time from Nigerians to secure the country and improve its economy.

Speaking during an interview televised on Friday evening by the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Buhari, listing some of the challenges he was battling, said that when tanks, helicopters and fighter jets were ordered, time was spent on training the personnel to handle them and stocking spare parts before deploying them to the field.

“The Nigerian elite ought to give more time to what the efforts the government is doing [sic], to physically secure the country, improve the economy and stop corruption.

“And the Nigerian elite know that we campaigned both in 2015 and 2019 on security because it’s just common sense. You have to secure a country or an establishment to manage it properly. So, number one thing is security; number two is economy; employment, a lot of youths that are unemployed [sic], and then fighting corruption, making sure that the regulation we have on the ground are followed to the letter. No shortcuts.”

Buhari had campaigned in 2015 on the back of anti-corruption and a promise to tackle insecurity in the country.

The security challenges in Nigeria have increased with kidnappings increasing in the northern part of the country.

This was Buhari’s second interview Buhari in a week when he left Abuja for Lagos to flag off the Deep Blue Project.