Shortly before the one year anniversary of President Muhammadu Buhari administration, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, spoke to PREMIUM TIMES’ Festus Owete and Sani Tukur, on the achievements of the administration, how the president spends his time outside official hours, his family life, and capacity to govern Nigeria.
Read the interview below:
PT: One year after, how has the journey been?
Adesina: So far so good, I will say. Because, if you recall how our country was this time last year and compare it with how it is today, you will see that there is a big difference, particularly in the area of security, in the area of the anti-corruption war, you can say that this government has done very well. The third one is the economy. That one is still tricky and it is work in progress. Then you take it one by one because there are three key promises APC made while campaigning. The president believes that you cannot administer a country you have not secured. And that is why he has gone all out to try and secure the country. You recall that by this time last year you weren’t quite sure where Nigeria was headed. Boko Haram was not just in the north east, it was in the north west, it was in north central and it could go down south anytime. That was the fear in the country. After some time the military pushed them back, got them circumscribed within the north east and as we speak they are even in the narrower area which is the Sambisa Forest. You can say other battlefronts have been opened in Niger Delta, herdsmen, kidnapping. Those are issues but one thing that is not in doubt is that this government has the capacity to deal with all the issues. I am not saying they are all going to be by armed conflict or by force of arms. Where they need to dialogue, they dialogue and where they need to negotiate, they negotiate. But this government does not lack the capacity to secure this country. So that gives us a lot of hope. Security wise, the government has done very well. On anti-corruption, of course we know what has been uncovered in this country. I remember in the UK about two weeks ago, one foreign media asked the president – did you know it was this bad? He confessed that he knew it was bad but he didn’t know it was that bad. It has turned out very, very bad. But it is also something that the government is tackling and the president is determined to leave a saner and cleaner Nigeria in terms of accountability and probity by the way he is going. No matter what anybody says about this corruption war, no friend no foe, no retreat, no surrender. Anybody, irrespective of who he is, if he has questions to answer on corruption, he will have to answer. I hear people say that it is selective. They need to prove. He who alleges must also prove. The anti-corruption war is going on and going on very well and it has earned Nigeria a lot of respect in the international community. The third promise he made was to revive the economy. Like I said earlier, that one is still key and touchy but it will be done because when the economy collapses as Nigeria’s did, it is not something you bring back by a snap of the fingers. It takes a lot of re-tooling and re-engineering to bring it back. It is work in progress and we will get there. No doubt, jobs will come from agriculture and solid minerals and other policies will stimulate the economy. It is a N6 trillion budget for instance for the first time. If it is properly implemented, and there is no reason why it will not be properly implemented, it will stimulate the economy. There will be more spending money at the disposal of Nigerians. So, I will say so far so good, the government is on course. I have used this illustration before, and I will use it again. Nigeria is like a plane that has taken off and is gaining altitude, with its nose in the air. As long as its nose is in the air, it is climbing. If the nose is down it is a danger signal.
