Roughly 50 days to May 29 handover date, the federal government, yesterday, defended some of President Muhammadu Buhari’s decisions in the last eight years, especially his choice of service chiefs, his long absence following a prolonged ailment as well as his alleged failure to sell off some assets in the presidential fleet as promised during his election campaign.
Speaking on Channels Television last night, presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, explained that the appointment of service chiefs should not be subject to ethnic balancing or the federal character principle.
The president, in the last eight years, had come under severe criticisms for alleged sectionalism in the choice of his service chief and heads of security agencies to the exclusion of certain parts of the country.
Buhari has largely declined to make any corrections to the alleged imbalances in the years that he has led the country even though he has even been severely flayed by his kinsman, Atiku Abubakar, for the alleged lopsided appointment of heads of security agencies by his administration. Atiku had put the number of northern heads of security agencies at 17.
But Adesina maintained that Buhari reserved the exclusive right to appoint whoever he wanted and from wherever he desired, arguing that the criterion for such selection was competence and not the ethnic grouping of the government officials so appointed.
“Critics will always be there. That’s their job. The thing about critics is that they hear themselves only. They don’t hear alternate voices,” the presidency said in defence of Buhari.
Adesina said when the administration became aware of the public discourse concerning the so-called imbalance in Buhari’s appointments, the federal government came out with a checklist in 2018, which showed that Ogun State had the highest number of government officials, followed by Imo.
He maintained that Katsina, where the president comes from was number five or six on the rung of Buhari’s appointments.
“Security is where you bring your best foot forward. Look at the echelon of the heads of security agencies since 2015, would you honestly say they have all been from one part of the country? Who was the chief of naval staff, who was the inspector general of police?
“So, security is something that you do based on the best and the brightest because all you want is for the country to be secure,” Adesina pointed out, stressing that people who highlighted where the head of a security agency came from “do not know what they are talking about.”
The presidency argued that Buhari had done his best given the circumstances he took over the nation, maintaining that the president did the right thing by opting for what it called the best, rather than their place of origin.
“Do not subject security to ethnic balancing, don’t subject security to federal character. In fact, the constitution that prescribes federal character even gives the president some prerogatives that he can appoint on his own. What the constitution requires of you is balancing in terms of each state being represented in terms of certain positions. Security is not part of it.
“A president will always have the prerogative to appoint those he feel will help him secure the country and have the kind of country he desires to have,” Adesina declared.
Reminded that between May 2015 and May 2022, over 55,000 Nigerians were killed by terrorists, bandits and armed gangs operating across the country, Adesina posited that Buhari was leaving the nation’s security better than he met it in 2015.
According to him, “You have quoted those figures. Do you also know of a report which says that in the last 12 years , 2022 was the year that recorded the least number of deaths in terms of insurgency and insecurity? We know that in this country, the figure has been coming down progressively over the years and it’s a fact of history. Nobody can change it,” he added.
The presidency, also, for the umpteenth time, took a swipe at the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Matthew Kukah, saying “Kukah cooks only bad news.”
Kukah had during his Easter homily urged Buhari to have a moment of introspection as he prepares to leave government, whether he fulfilled his promises to halt incessant killings, end banditry, defeat corruption, sell off part of the presidential fleet and whether he has been fair to all Nigerians, among others.
But Adesina said, “You know Bishop Kukah cooks very bad news and they are not appetising at all. Somebody has said that it’s time he pulled off his cassock and become a full time politician. He’s rather too partisan.
“Those things don’t do credit to Father Kukah’s intellectual posture. He is somebody that we had always admired for his intellectual bent, but his opinions have been coloured by politics.
“He talked about selling the presidential fleet. Was that ever promised? In 2015, there were a rash of promises made that even the candidate did not know about. So, how can you start claiming that he promised that? Can he prove it?”
While noting that, it was disappointing Kukah insisted Nigeria has not improved markedly, he said, “Are we where we were on the issue of banditry in 2015? The job is not fully done but are we where we were? If Father Kukah is true to himself and true to his calling as a cleric, he will know that this country is not where it was in 2015.”
On corruption, the special adviser opined that no country ever defeats corruption, even in China, where he said they summarily execute corrupt officials. “I think Father Kukah is rather disappointing in those choice of words,” Adesina added.
He, however, admitted that the president’s sickness in his early days as Nigerian leader was a setback for his plan for reviving the country.
“It should be because when he fell sick in January 2017, he came back in March (and) went again in April and didn’t come back till August 19. About all, eight months. That sickness took eight months of his time in the office. Of course, nobody would like that. But what we are glad about is that he came whole, sound and better than country,” he noted.
Ramping up his defence that Buhari never promised to sell off the presidential fleet, Adesina said Buhari only promised to ‘look at the fleet’ and not sell off the fleet, when he campaigned for office in 2015.
He stated that, ‘two to three jets’ had been sold from the presidential fleet and ‘two to three’ of the helicopters given to the Nigerian Air Force to aid their job of securing Nigeria.
“President Buhari promised to look at the presidential fleet, which he did. Helicopters were given to the Air Force, two or three jets were sold off. That is cutting off excesses. What some people expect is selling off all the jets and start flying the Nigerian Airways if Nigerian Airways still exists,” he argued.
On the president’s highest and lowest moments, Adesina said anytime reports of killings in any part of the country got to Buhari, it always hit him negatively, while he was always glad when any Nigerian did something right or acts in an upright manner.
Addressing the economy, inflation, and unemployment among others, the spokesman argued that Buhari met a mono-economy but he would be leaving a diversified one since the contribution of oil has reduced to less than 10 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).