TheCable

Adebayo Shittu, former minister of communications, says a number of projects he initiated during his stint at the federal cabinet were frustrated by colleagues.

Shittu served as minister of communications from 2015 to 2019 in Muhammadu Buhari’s first tenure as civilian president. 

In an interview on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, Shittu admitted that the Buhari administration failed to fulfil some of its campaign promises. 

“Even as an individual who had a mandate to oversee communications, there were several projects which I initiated but were frustrated along the line,” he said.

“For instance, I wanted to do an ICT university for Nigeria and I made a proposal and it got to the federal executive council, only for a number of our colleagues to oppose it and at the end of the day, Mr President said ‘Barrister Shittu, I want to commend you for your hard work on this memo but this is an overambitious project’.

“That was my saddest day in government.

“This is one of the things that happened and I was not happy but at the end of the day, when the federal executive council as a body rejects a proposal, you cannot do anything.”

Shittu added that he had no regrets serving as minister.

“I did not regret serving because I was able to do other things,” he said. 

“We do know very well that Nigeria had virtually been run aground before he (Buhari) came onboard. Even as someone who served in the Buhari government during the first term, I am always honest enough to admit certain failures that we had.”

Shittu added that the president was sometimes kept in the dark about contract awards processes and the goings-on in his administration. 

“Let me tell you, there were a lot of manipulations and we even heard that a lot of the so-called approvals did not emanate from President Buhari,” he said.

“There were a lot of manipulations and approvals which did not emanate from the president. I am telling you confidently that a lot of it did not get his attention.”