The Senior Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu has come out to give reasons as to why the President is yet to make appointments after over a month in office.
Speaking after an exclusive chat with President Buhari, Shehu revealed that the president had not made any appointments for several reasons.
He availed that President Buhari was focused on the campaign against terror and corruption and would not be making any appointments until both issues had been satisfactorily tackled.
His words:
“It is about security. That is his number one campaign agenda and he is living up to it. He has concentrated all his energy trying to put together a credible response to Boko Haram terrorists. And this has taken him to the neighboring countries. He has met Defence Chief, the Service Chiefs almost every week. He has also taken this to G7, also to the African Union. He has been trying to form a massive alliance, a massive response to the Boko Haram terrorists.
“Besides that, he is also restrategizing also for the economic revival of the country and the coming of foreign investment, again using the platform provided by the G7 and the United States of America. And then, you can see that he has started making moves about the recovery of the stolen billions of dollars by some Nigerians that are recoverable. So, he is actually working without making so much noise on the fulfilment of his election promises.
“Nigerians have a choice to make. What do they want as their priority? Is it appointment, security or even better economy or do they want a corruption free environment? That is the thing. For the president, appointment is not the key issue for him now. That is very clear from his action. The most important thing is to get the job done. And he is working.
“As it is now, is there any lacuna? Are you thinking there is any gap that is not being covered by the bureaucrats? There is nothing that is not being covered. The Permanent Secretaries are part of the meetings. Nobody is saying that it is not important to make political appointments. He will make appointments.
“As he has said himself, he wants to scrutinized and make the right kind of appointment. He doesn’t want to appoint one today and make changes tomorrow. Given this war for the recovery of stolen funds, that will have implication for the people who are going to be appointed. If he appoints you today and may be in the drive, you are implicated, he will fire you.”
The Trent.
