President Buhari disowns campaign promises

President Muhammadu Buhari 

President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday disowned two of his campaign documents containing promises on what he would do in his first 100 days in office.

A statement from his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu titled: “Understanding Buhari in 100 days” pointedly disowned two campaign documents which he said emanated from some of party’s “so many centres of public communication which, for whatever reason, were on the loose.”

“There is a certain document tagged “One Hundred Things Buhari Will Do in 100 Days” and the other, “My Covenant With Nigerians.” Both pamphlets bore the authorised party logo but as the Director of Media and Communications in that campaign, I did not fund or authorise any of those. I can equally bet my last Kobo that Candidate Buhari did not see or authorise those publications.

“As a consequence of these publications, expectations have been raised unreasonably, that as President, Muhammadu Buhari will wave his hand and all the problems that the country faces — insecurity, corruption, unemployment, poor infrastructure would go away.

“But that notwithstanding, President Buhari has given the job his best shot and the whole country is saying that we never had it so good. He has re-instituted the values of hard work and administrative efficiency. The President says times without number that this country needs to fix governance and that he won’t tolerate laziness.

“In the area of economic management, Nigerians are already seeing things happen that they thought were not possible in so short a time.

“He didn’t put a Kobo to finance the power sector. Yet, reading his body language alone and knowing that there are things you cannot do and get away with under Buhari, electricity supply all over the country has risen to unprecedented height.

“In this country, appointments and removal from office are done usually in accordance with a spoils system.

“A new government sacks officials on the basis only that it did not appoint them, but the predecessor-adminstration [did].

“President Buhari has shown that his government is different. He wants to look at each case on its own merit and it is clear by now that he is not ready to surrender the country to burnt out politicians. Technocrats will have a big place in his administration. He has appointed no ministers yet, but the government is running smoothly.

“In this period of three months, government certainly deserves a pat on the back for improved power, reform in the energy sector, foreign relations, fight against corruption and insurgency and the fact of Nigerians being at peace, not only among themselves, but with their neighbors and the rest of the world,” he declared, while adding that “President Buhari will turn out to be a leader in the tradition of Lee Kuan-Yu and India’s current reform-minded Prime Minister Modi with strong and clear emphasis on detail and execution. He may however differ with them by not micro-managing things.”