TheCable

Garba Shehu, a presidential spokesperson, has condemned those he described as professional critics who are fond of criticising meaningful government policies and programmes with the hope of being “settled”.

Reacting to the criticisms trailing President Muhammadu Buhari’s Independence Day speech, he said the trend of paying critics to keep quiet has been abolished.

“As for those critics who are used to being settled by successive governments, with false claims to being so-called conscience of society popping out from the cupboard on and off to drive the country towards religious and ethnic polarization, they have no other motive but to rock the boat of good governance,” Shehu said in a statement on Monday.

“What they yearn for is to be picked out to be paid to keep quiet. The Buhari government has abolished ‘settlement’.

“Polarising speeches that aggravate Nigerian against a brother Nigerian are causing damage to our democracy, rocking at the very foundation of our unity and they better not cross those red lines as warned by the president.”

The senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity also said it was unfair for the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo to blame the recent unrest in the south-east region on the federal government.

According to him, the president’s message to all community leaders including the Ohanaeze is that they have a huge role to play in what happens in their communities and in how their youths behave.

“President Buhari was not abdicating his responsibilities. He didn’t request any political leader to do anything seminal or out of the box,” he said.

“All he says is, talk to your out-of-the-line-youth so that we have some peace. Igbo leaders need not to be on the defensive for the misbehaviour of the IPOB which they rightly condemned.”

Shehu said the president was simply saying that the regional leaders also had a role to play in keeping their hot-headed youth in check.

He said the admonition applied equally to leaders of every other region of the country, not only the Ohanaeze from the south-east.

According to him, elders from every region must step out and speak up whenever their youth go out of line, such as when the IPOB launched unspeakable diatribes against other groups of people in other parts of the country and then began to threaten violence.

The presidential aide said: “President Buhari was simply calling out the regional leaders to their responsibilities, making them aware of the crucial role they can play.

“This should not be seen as an attack on the Ohanaeze or on any other regional leaders.”

Shehu further said the successes being recorded by the Buhari administration are everywhere to see, maintaining that the president deserves praise for rebuilding what was “destroyed”.

He said: “We inherited a country in tatters- its economy, its security and its social relations. President Buhari deserves credit for rebuilding what has been destroyed.

“If anyone thinks this a failure, let them talk to those millions of farmers we have empowered to create riches for themselves and the nation, for whom fertilizer is available everywhere at the regulated price of N5,500 instead of N13,800, a year ago.

“Let them ask the manufacturers and importers of goods who bought the Dollar at N525:00 and are happy that it is down to N360:00 and still improving.

“Let them go back and read the accomplishments highlighted in the speech, to see the advancements in security, agriculture, the ease of doing business and anti-corruption, to mention a few.”