#100DaysOfBuhari: “Corruption is down 50%” – Garba Shehu

Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, says that corruption has reduced by 50 per cent partly as a result of the fear of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Shehu, who disclosed this in an interview with Vanguard, explained that corruption is a cancer that has eaten deep into the fabrics of the nation.

He said without it being addressed, Nigeria will be backwards and ultimately isolated.

Look at what is happening with electric power.   As I speak to you now, there are so many parts of the country that are enjoying 24-hour power supply.   Some,16 hours, some 20 hours daily.   Not many people thought this was possible until it came under President Buhari.   And people will be shocked to learn that this government has not started to pump money into this thing, yet, it has started to work.

It is the body language of the President and doing the right thing so that all the laziness and sabotage in that sector took flight. We now have far more generated power than we had ever generated in this country.

So, we are getting somewhere and the President promised during the campaign period that if he was voted into office, from the day he was sworn in, official corruption would go down by 50 percent.

Voluntarily, people relinquished 50 percent of the corruption that prevailed in the country and that is what has happened.

Discussing further on the issue of appointments, contrary to people’s opinion that Buhari’s appointment is lopsided, he is not a sectional leader.  Appointments will be made one step at a time.

“Others are still coming and it will even run like that throughout the four years of the mandate of the administration. What people should have on this matter is patience. Those who feel they have not been reached will definitely be reached. A government that has a lifespan of four years should not be judged by its action on day one.  No.

It should be that by the time the President says, ‘Now, I have finished my appointments’, they should be able to look at it and pass judgment as to whether he was fair to all sections of the country or not.

He is a Constitution-oriented person.   He will not fail Nigerians and he will do what is right.   We think that much of the anger that is coming is emotional and premature because there are thousands of appointments that can come.  And then on the aggregate, people will look at it and judge.

Shehu further stressed that people should take consolation in the fact Buhari did not fire those he found in offices just because he felt he did not appoint them, as was the practice by previous administrations.

This is the first time we are witnessing this kind of attitude to governance in Nigeria. This country has a spoilt system by which a new government will fire everybody in office so that they could bring in their own people.

President Buhari is doing his own on a case-by-case basis insisting that whoever is there for the good of the country and is adding value to the nation, it would be unfair to carelessly fire him.   And this is essential because four years down the line, when Nigerians come to assess what nature of governance President Buhari has given to this nation, the record of success will not be measured by the number of ethnically or religiously based appointments he made.

He will be measured by how many jobs he has created, how much of the prevailing corruption in the country he has curtailed, how much of the infrastructure including power and roads he has fixed and how secured we are because he will be asked whether he has eliminated Boko Haram.

These are the things the judgment of his administration will be based upon and on these he is not wavering.   He has given 100 percent attention to all of them and people who are kind to him should give him the environment that he needs in order to do more.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

cool good eh love2 cute confused notgood numb disgusting fail