Buhari not bothered by propaganda - APC secretary

Buhari not bothered by propaganda - APC secretary

- Alhaji Buni notes that Nigeria is going through an economically challenging period

- He says the president is commuted to changing the fortune of Nigeria

- He says the president will not relax in the face of propaganda

Alhaji Mai Mala Buni who is the national secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has said that President Muhammadu Buhari will not be affected by propaganda against his administration.

In an interview with Daily Trust, the secretary of the APC said Nigerians should be proud of President Buhari especially with the way he was handling the budget issue.

“This is the type of president every citizen should be proud of. I wish you will recall the inconsistencies, errors, additions and padding that were deliberately done to the budget, shortly after the president presented it to the National Assembly. You will, as well, imagine the embarrassment caused to the president, the federal government and the APC as the ruling party. Now, the same document was brought back to the president in bits and pieces, and you want him to assent his signature to legalise everything, including those he had not seen in the budget details? Are you really fair to him and would you see him as a serious person if he had signed the budget? If Mr President had signed the budget summary and, thereafter, inconsistencies and errors emerged, just as we witnessed, who do you blame?

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“The propaganda about his approach to governance is just to coerce him to relax and he will never relax until things are done right. The insistence to have the complete budget document is to ensure that Nigeria has a document that is truly a policy guide, a realistic budget that has interest of the people.”

Buni noted that Nigeria was going through a challenging period caused by the former administration but expressed optimism that things will get better.

“It is sad that Nigeria has to pass through these hard times at this moment under the APC-led administration. It is equally sad that the economy is weak, owing to the dwindling oil prices, which is our major source of income. The difficulty is over bloated by the damage done to the economy and infrastructures in the last 16 years when, as a nation, with buoyant economy, we failed to maintain and improve on the existing infrastructures. The players at that moment engaged in massive stealing of the nation’s commonwealth, whose colossal consequences we are forced to pay now. I have heard people saying we have been shifting all the blames to the previous government.

“The truth is that some people are ignorant of the scale and quantum of destruction done by the previous regime to the economy and the polity. Not quite long, prominent Nigerians and renowned professionals predicted hard times for the country because of  the damage inflicted. They cautioned government on the massive looting of the nation’s treasury and the decay in infrastructures, with a strong warning to redress the situation.

“In 2011, the Emir of Kano, His Royal Highness, Muhammadu Sanusi ll, then, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, warned Nigeria to address the abuse on the economy, saying if nothing was done,  Greek economic meltdown will be a child’s play compared with what awaits the Nigerian economy. He said unless the system was sanitised, the US dollar will rise against the Nigerian Naira astronomically, and government may not be able to pay salaries. In January 2015, the former president, Goodluck Jonathan, during his re-election campaign, paid a courtesy visit on the emir of Ilorin, where he emphatically told Nigerians that “Nobody can fix Nigeria in four years.” The former president knew very well the volume of damage done to the economy under his watch to have made such a statement.

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"Interestingly, it was only when the APC-led administration came on board that the true picture of the damage and challenges emerged. And the challenges repeatedly snowballed as the days go by. In fact, it was out of President Buhari’s tenacity and experience that the machinery of government did not collapse completely and salaries are being paid promptly. In the face of these challenges, the president is rebuilding a new Nigeria that will serve the common man, a system that will block leakages, stop abuse of public trust and end the culture of looting national treasury. We are also mindful of the fact that in the course of this national rebirth, corruption will definitely fight back,  and that is what we are witnessing today in the oil and power sectors, as well as in government circles where inconsistencies were deliberately created in the national budget. These challenges are temporary, we will definitely surmount them and build a prosperous future for the country.”

You may read the full interview here.

Source: Legit.ng

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