President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to hand over to his successor after the 2023 presidential election.
According to him, he plans to return to his farm in Daura, Katsina State.
Buhari stated this while speaking in Istanbul, the capital of Turkey, where he is to participate in the 3rd Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit, hosted by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A statement by his spokesman, Garba Shehu said Buhari cut his 79th birthday cake moulded in national colours, green-white-green, to start the day, before going on to chair a planning meeting with officials in his delegation and thereafter drove to the Dolmabahce Palace for a meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Erdogan.
Shehu said in response to the tribute on the occasion on behalf of the ministers and the rest of the delegation rendered by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, the president said he will put in his best for Nigeria until the last day when in 2023 he hands over to a successor and returns to his farm to tender crops and livestock.
“I thought that being away from Abuja I will escape these things. The Guards Brigade had written to tell me what they wanted to do on this day. Now here you are doing this far away from home.
“I look forward to the year 2023 when I will finish, to go home to take charge of my farm. Between now and that time, I will do the best that is possible to advance the interest of the nation and its people, and carry out my duties as prescribed by the Constitution.
“As he stepped out of his suite moving to the meeting room, President Buhari met a surprise lineup of the Nigerian delegation with a cake decorated in Nigeria’s national colours,” he said.
