Had former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua been alive today, the situation of the abducted Chibok girls would have been different, his wife Hajiya Turai has said.
Speaking yesterday in Katsina at the second Yar’Adua Memorial Lecture, organised to honour the late president, she urged Nigerians to offer special prayers for the immediate rescue of the kidnapped girls and for continuous peace and unity to reign in the entire nation.
Hajiya Turai Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who almost shed tears, expressed deep concern over the Chibok school students.
She insisted that her husband was “a practical leader who wanted peace in the entire country.”
The former first lady said that Umaru Yar’Adua was passionate about the peace, unity and corporate existence of the Nigerian nation.
“Umaru may mean different things to different people, but to me he was a humble, loving and caring husband, with an unmatched love for the nation,” she said.
Earlier in a memorial lecture titled “An Evaluation and Contributions of Governor Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s Educational Development in Katsina State”, Professor Munzali Jibril of Bayero University, Kano, said the former leader epitomised humility.
Jibril noted that Yar’Adua was endowed with honesty, sincerity and deliberate avoidance of the trappings of power, adding that his administration introduced different policies that helped revamp education in Katsina state.
“The late President Yar’Adua was a perfectionist and wanted everything to be perfect,” the professor, a former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, said.
He urged Nigerians to continue to pray for the repose of the soul of the late president.
