TheCable

Femi Adesina, special adviser to the president on media and publicity, has responded to the Peoples Democratic Party’s scorching appraisal of President Muhammadu Buhari’s first 30 days in office, saying the president has been preoccupied with “cleaning the mess” left behind by the PDP administration of Goodluck Jonathan.

Reacting to the statement by Olisa Metuh, PDP’s national publicity secretary, that Buhari’s government was “all motion and no movement” and that it has so far brought “unprecedented economic decline”, the presidential spokesman said restoring Nigeria to its path requires scrupulous and painstaking planning.

“It is amusing to read what the National Publicity Secretary of the defeated Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olisa Metuh, considers a 30 days appraisal of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration,” Adesina said in a counter-statement he issued on Sunday.

“He wants Nigerians to join hands in prayers for the government, so that things would begin to move. What he does not know is that Nigerians had long formed such coalition. They are hands in hands, and that was what gave victory to President Buhari in the March 28, 2015 poll.

“The Buhari administration is naturally contemplative because there was absolutely no rhyme or reason to the way PDP ran the country, particularly in the immediate past dispensation.

“That is why the Augean Stable is being cleaned now, and it requires scrupulous and painstaking planning. Across all sectors, our national life was devalued, and it takes meticulousness and sure-footedness to repair all the breaches. This, the Buhari administration will deliver.”

Adesina, who had earlier told TheCable that the absence of ministers was not affecting governance in any way, faulted Metuh’s assessment of Buhari’s 30 days in office.

“There is no vacuum because the permanent secretaries are running the ministries,” he had told TheCable. “It is even an opportunity for them to straighten some things before the arrival of the politicians.”

Adesina urged Nigerians to join hands with Buhari’s government in order for it to succeed.

He said Nigerians had teamed up to uproot “an administration that had brought the country to her knees, and was about to tip her off the precipice”, adding that they also resolved that “never would they allow any government to divide them along regional, religious and ethnic fault lines again”.

He also described as “déjà vu,” a situation where Metuh claimed that people around the president were conniving with bureaucrats to siphon money from the treasury, alleging that such was the pastime of Jonathan’s administration.

“In the process of time, after all that is being planned by the current administration has matured, and bearing fruits, Nigerians will be able to determine who is serving them acceptably, and who has taken them for a ride. It is just a matter of time,” Adesina said.

“Meanwhile, Metuh and his masters can only rue the missed opportunities to make salutary impact on the lives of Nigerians. They have a long road of regrets to travel.”