TheCable

Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, has blamed ex-President Goodluck Jonathan for President Muhammadu Buhari’s delay in appointing members of his cabinet.

It took the president six months to unveil his cabinet and this attracted widespread criticisms.

Speaking when he featured on Sunrise Daily, a programme on Channels Television, on Monday, Shehu said the refusal of Jonathan’s government to cooperate with the transition committee had a negative effect on the current administration.

Frank Shuaibu, special adviser on public communications to Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who also featured on the programme, had listed Buhari’s delay in appointing his cabinet as one of the factors that plunged the economy into a recession.

Replying to Shuaibu, Shehu said Buhari was kept in the dark of the workings of the government and had to wait till he assumed office, causing the delay in the appointments.

“The claims made by my dear friend here that President Muhammadu Buhari spent 166 days without forming a cabinet, that absolutely is untrue,” Shehu said.

“It took him time to form a cabinet because the outgoing administration in 2015 did not cooperate with the transition committee.

“The President was given handover notes 48 hours to the handover of power and for whatever reason, the President at that time determined that…the question that president Buhari was asking, for details of this and that, amounting to running a second government in office.

“And he came out to all his ministers and permanent secretaries not to cooperate with Muhammadu Buhari that this country will not have two governments running at the same.

“What this means is that President Muhammadu Buhari had wait to come into office and learn about all the inner things that they had done so that he can build on the processes. The government he inherited was horribly disjointed, it was broken.”

Shehu had earlier, in a tweet, asked the PDP to mind its business and quit commenting on the campaign of issues of the All Progressives Congress (APC)

The opposition party had in a statement, said Buhari is not preparing to stand the 2019 elections because the party had not constituted its campaign council.

“The fact that President Buhari has failed to constitute his campaign council or developed a clear-cut campaign blueprint, 61 days to the February Presidential election, is an indication that he is not preparing to stand elections,” the opposition party had said.

“Mr. President and his party, the APC have failed to set up a campaign structure because they are banking on their plots with the INEC under Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to manipulate the electoral process and rig for them.

“It is clear that @MBuhari has been overwhelmed over his rejection by Nigerians, who are bearing the brunt of his incompetent & corrupt administration; that is why he cannot articulate any campaign message after the failed launch of his plagiarized “Next Level” mantra.”

Mind your business and concentrate more on your insubstantial campaigns. https://t.co/hzwa2YtYMX

— Garba Shehu (@GarShehu) December 17, 2018

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