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Tag: Garba Shehu

  • BREAKING: Garba Shehu must go — Aisha Buhari declares war on Buhari’s spokesperson [Full Statement]

    Outspoken First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Aisha Buhari has cautioned Shehu Garba, the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari.

    Aisha Buhari expressed her concern in a statement made available to TheNewsGuru(TNG) on Wednesday, which reads:

    “Nigeria’s development is hinged on the ability of public officials to execute their mandates professionally, and to be shining examples in their various areas of endeavor. It is not a good sign when officials abandoned their responsibility and start clutching at straws.

    As spokesperson of the President, he has the onerous responsibility of managing the image of the President and all the good works that he is executing in the country.

    “Rather than face this responsibility squarely, he has shifted his loyalty from the President to others who have no stake in the compact that the President signed with Nigerians on May 29, 2015 and 2019.
    To make matters worse, Mr. Shehu has presented himself to these people as a willing tool and executioner of their antics, from the corridors of power even to the level of interfering with the family affairs of the President. This should not be so.

    The blatant meddling in the affairs of a First Lady of a country is a continuation of the prodigal actions of those that he serves.

    “We all remember that the chief proponent appropriated to himself and his family a part of the Presidential Villa, where he stayed for almost 4 years and when the time came for him to leave, he orchestrated and invaded my family’s privacy through a video circulated by Mamman’s Daughter, Fatima, the public was given the impression that on arrival into the country I was locked out of the villa by Mr. President.

    Garba Shehu as Villa Spokesperson, knew the truth and had the responsibility to set the records straight, but because his allegiance is somewhere else and his loyalty misplaced, he deliberately refused to clear the air and speak for the President who appointed him in the first place.

    “Consequently, his action has shown a complete breakdown of trust between the First Family and him.
    Mr. Shehu was privy and part of the plan and it’s execution and he was shocked when he realized that I had publicized my return to Nigeria on October 12, 2019 and cleared the air on the many rumors that took over social media, a job he was supposed to do but kept mute to cause more confusion and instability for his Principal and his family.

    Garba then, vented his anger on the National Television Authority (NTA) Management insisting that the media crew to my office must be sacked.

    He succeeded in getting them suspended for doing their job. I had to intervene to save the innocent staff from losing their means of livelihood by involving the Department of State Services (DSS) in order to ascertain roles played by key actors in the saga.

    “It is at this late hour that I recall, sadly, that it was the same Garba Shehu who claimed that the government will not allow office of the First Lady to run. He was later to confirm to one of my aides that he was instructed to say so by Mamman Daura and not the President.

    This antic attracted the anger of Nigerian women. He didn’t realize the fact that First Lady’s office is a tradition which has become an institution.
    Today, even without a budget, I am able run my humanitarian programmes.

    In saner climes, Garba Shehu would have resigned immediately after going beyond his boundaries and powers.

    GARBA SHEHU NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR WILL NO LONGER BE TOLERATED.

    The latest of his antics was to wage a war on the first family through an orchestrated media campaign of calumny by sponsoring pseudo accounts to write and defame my children and myself.

    “Based on Garba Shehu’s misguided sense of loyalty and inability to stay true and loyal to one person or group, it has become apparent that all trust has broken down between him and my family due to the many embarrassments he has caused the Presidency and the first family.

    We all have families to consider in our actions and therefore it is in the best interest of all concerned for Garba Shehu to take the advice of the authority, given to him sometimes in the first week of November, 2019”.

  • 2019: Between ease of doing business and ease of doing fraud, By Garba Shehu

    Election campaign begins tomorrow, November 18, ninety days to the vote, and something of great interest to citizens and international observers alike is what kind of contest to expect. There is no gainsaying that this is an immensely important election. Apart from the fact of the stark choice of either going forward or backwards; choice between light and darkness, a large percentage of the country’s traditional and political elite is up in arms against the sitting Buhari administration, which they accuse of disrupting their lifestyle, itself characterised by licentiousness especially when it comes to dealing with the commonwealth. This opposition, it must be said, has liquidity of the type that government itself does not have.

    The US Dollar rain by a major opposition party at their convention in Port Harcourt is a dire warning in this direction. This contrasts sharply with the high level of discipline put in place through the Treasury Single Account, TSA being implemented by the Buhari government. It is a matter for great concern that the leading opposition parties have resolved to undertake a campaign clearly aimed at aggravating differences between Nigerians on the basis of especially religion, region and tribe. A document in circulation, from the resolutions of a retreat in a foreign country by one of the parties makes no pretences about their plan to cause tension between various communities.

    They have dramatically begun actions to destroy the integrity of the election process. Even before the gates open for the race to begin, this country is already witness to a unique type of campaign based on unverified allegation or distortion propagated in the two chambers of the National Assembly which are strangely led by opposition candidates in a minority party in the coming election. They have lately launched scathing attacks on government concerning payment for fuel subsidy and the emergency feeding program of the displaced communities in the Northeast. There are vivid reports of unscrupulous opposition politicians who have finished the lives of our youths by handing guns to them, turning them into rag-tag guerrillas confronting our security agencies in Abuja and states in the north central zone.

    For the All Progressives Congress, APC administration at the center, initial moves towards 2019 have been about the effort to publicise the administration’s achievements while at the same time dispelling negative propaganda by the opposition. While it is clear that the opposition is unprepared for a contest based on policies programs, and past records of work, they are bent on distracting the attention of voters by appealing to sectional feelings and throwing voters into confusion. Churches and Mosques and other places of worship are being recruited for election propaganda. For us in the APC, the task before us as we embark on the campaign is to make plain and clear how the country progressed over the last three years and I dare say that there is so much to talk about. We are proud of our achievements.

    But we must first of all make the voter to illustrate where we are coming from because without doing that, it is hard for many to appreciate the enormous strides the nation has made under the present dispensation. For instance, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, at a press conference early this week announced that this administration has achieved the remarkable feat of doubting the available electric power in the county, from less than 4,000 megawatts to now 8,000 mw. This wattage is the available power that is generated and transmitted. Distribution, which is now in private hands, has improved but at 5,000 mw, it still has a lot of catching up to do.

    If we had continued with the pace, corruption and ineptitude that characterized the war against Boko Haram by 2015, it would have taken us decades to eliminate the terrorists’ hold on Nigerian territory and have them confined to a little corner in the country, by the banks of the Lake Chad. Agriculture was abandoned in that region and only a few could grow their own food in years. The Boko Haram had a state within the Nigerian State with a defined territory, a flag, a system of administration complete with taxation and a court system. There was a time that in the northeast, two million people were displaced. Now, the communities are returning as government, with local and international support put back damaged infrastructure.

    The Buhari administration has shown the ability to take hard decisions, in the nation’s interest as has been seen in dealing with the economy. This administration is doing something that no government had done since independence in 1960, which is moving the economy in a completely new direction. Government has done so much, especially in agriculture, solid minerals and manufacturing, preparing the country for the greatness that we all desire.

    It would amount to a major reversal, if not self-immolation for the voters to take steps that return us to the discredited past. Take another example, the reform of the trade and investment sector by which the administration has been streamlining systems, ensuring transparency and fewer rules. That’s what the ease of doing business is all about, measures that have brought a lot of international compliment to Nigeria and for which there is a Presidential Enabling Business Council. As a result of this work, Nigeria moved 24 places on the World Bank ease of doing business rankings, and earned a place on the list of 10 most improved economies in 2017.

    A prospective investor denied visa to come by a corrupt consular office in a Nigerian mission can today hop into a plane and obtain his/her visa on arrival. New businesses which took years upon years to register now have a maximum of a 48-hour waiting period to be certified. In the words of President Muhammadu Buhari, “Nigeria is taking steps towards creating a more business friendly environment for foreign investors and visiting business people. Our Visa on Arrival policy as one of the components of our ease of doing business in Nigeria policy is working.

    “Corruption has been identified as an impediment to sound business practices. The fight against corruption, the ongoing exercise to rid the country of the remnants of the insurgency, the continuing importance we attach to transparency in Governance. These are just some of the major policy initiatives, all of which need to be analysed and reported on to the global audience by the media both at home and internationally.” For decades, demand for fertilizer had never been sufficiently met until this administration came. The foreign exchange part of it, USD 200 million is eliminated; subsidies that run up to N60 billion annually have been stopped and on top of that, prices per bag have crashed from N14,000, to government approved price of N5,500. From farmers to pundits and experts in the agric sectors, (SECTOR) no one ever imagined that Nigeria could stop rice imports and achieve near self sufficiency in three years, but here we are: 90-95 percent of rice imports have ceased.

    The President is carrying out difficult reforms for the future growth of the country, such as the implementation of the ease of doing business, the Treasury Single Account, TSA, the whistleblower process, and hundreds of others, including the massive investment in rail, roads, power and airports. If such reforms had happened in 16 years of the PDP, this country would not have been lowly ranked among nations. In the middle of the process of changing the country from its unwanted standing to a more desirable one, that’s not the time to change a president.

    In Nigeria as in many other democracies, campaign and elections are addictions. They come with attitudes and responses, those that wanted and those that are unwanted. There are worrying excesses that attend our campaigns, and these are already on display. These, if not managed using voluntary agreement or a code of conduct on rules of behaviour for the political parties and their supporters, can turn things in the wrong direction. When they enter into those agreements voluntarily, parties are more likely to feel bound by commitments into which they have freely entered. For a conducive atmosphere to prevail in making wise and informed choices, parties have a duty to sit around the table to decide. More than all the others, the governing APC has a national call to lead this coalition before the revisionists stampede the unsuspecting citizens into substituting the ease of doing business with the ease of doing fraud.

    •Garba Shehu is SSAP Media and Publicity to the President

  • 2019: Atiku, Obasanjo will lose together – Garba Shehu

    Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, has reacted to the meeting of leading contender for the office of Nigeria’s President, Atiku Abubakar with former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports Atiku on Thursday met with Obasanjo behind closed doors following his emergence as the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) presidential flagbearer in the 2019 elections.
    After the meeting in which Obasanjo reconciled the differences between him and Atiku, he endorsed the PDP’s presidential flagbearer for President in the presence of Atiku’s right hand man and former Governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel; Uche Secondus, the National Chairman of the party, Bishop of Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Kukah; Islamic preacher, Dr. Ahmad Abubkaar Gumi; and Founder of Winners’ Chapel, Bishop David Oyedepo.
    “They will lose together,” Garba Shehu said in a statement in reaction to the meeting between Atiku and Obasanjo, adding: “Listening to the prepared statement of the former President after the meeting showed the usual ego trip and “I know it all” character of Chief Obasanjo”.
    Read full statement:
    OBASANJO’S ENDORSEMENT OF ATIKU WILL NOT DISTRACT PRESIDENT BUHARI
    The Presidency has received the news of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s predictable U-turn and somersault on the endorsement of the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar, at a meeting Thursday, and to say that we are the least surprised by the well-rehearsed theatre.
    They will lose together. Listening to the prepared statement of the former President after the meeting showed the usual ego trip and “I know it all” character of Chief Obasanjo.
    In the first place, we dare to say that a pompous statement from the former President advising Nigerians on a vote against President Buhari is the best recommendation that can come at this time.
    It also betrayed a lack of understanding of today’s politics which is about good governance.
    The country voted for change in 2015 and a leader that ensures good governance which only President Buhari and the APC can provide.
    Bent on these laudable goals, we will not allow ourselves to be distracted.
    We are busy on various national issues including the restructuring and the diversification of the economy, fighting corruption, terrorism and other threats to national security; increasing the availability of electric power, improving education, health, and providing long-delayed infrastructure – roads, rail, airports and so forth.
    Many governments have come and gone, but they did not care about some of these projects.
    We were talking about these things for sixteen years under the PDP and nothing was done.
    President Buhari is proud of his record because his achievements are verifiable, while that of the PDP is manifested by the devastating social and economic impact of large scale corruption during their governance.
    The President will not relent in the war against corruption because the ordinary people are the ultimate victims if we surrender to corruption and let its perpetrators go unpunished.
    Abandoning the war against corruption is not an option. President Buhari is in this battle against graft because he cannot allow a few, rapacious, and selfish class of the elite to divert the resources meant for the well-being of the ordinary people to their private pockets.
    Nigerians trust President Buhari in this effort because they are convinced he is not in government for personal financial benefits, or for an ego trip. It is just eleven years ago that the former President and Vice President in their ugly fight for power accused each other of corruption. Nigerians are yet to forget all that.
     

  • Presidency to El-Rufai: You are on your own

    The Presidency has distanced President Muhammadu Buhari from a letter in circulation, which alleged that the President had authorized Gov. Nasir el-Rufai to “deal with traitors and disloyal members of APC, especially Sen. Shehu Sani.
    Malam Garba Shehu, the President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, made this known in a statement in Abuja on Sunday.
    According to the presidential aide, the president is not aware of any such letter, let alone authorising anyone to deal with any party member.
    The statement read: “The presidency wishes to distance President Muhammadu Buhari from a letter currently in circulation, which alleges that the President had authorized a governor or anyone else for that matter to deal with traitors and disloyal members of APC, especially Senator Shehu Sani.
    “We wish to confirm that the president is not aware of any such letter, let alone authorising anyone to deal with any party member.
    “Given President Buhari’s record, it is inconceivable that he would usurp the role of the party leaders and instruct anyone to punish a party member.
    “In the light of above, we would like to appeal to the general public, especially members of the press, to ignore false or unauthorised information intended to attribute to the president any action which is not in line with his character.’’
    It would be recalled that Gov. El-Rufai of Kaduna State had last week visited the Presidential villa twice over political developments in his state.
    El-Rufai, who vehemently opposed the decision of the APC National Working Committee (NWC) to clear Sen. Shehu Sani as the sole candidate in the race for APC-Kaduna Central, said the fate of the senator “lies in the hands of the party delegates in the state”.
    The national body of the APC had on Sunday reiterated that Sani remained its only senatorial candidate from Kaduna Central.
    The Acting National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr Yekini Nabena, confirmed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja.
     

  • Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu: Tweedledum and Tweedledee – Femi Aribisala

    By Femi Aribisala

    Four gravely ill Nigerians went to see their doctor. One was Hausa, another Yoruba, the third Igbo and the fourth from Niger-Delta. They all had very high temperatures and could hardly walk and talk. They had the same complaints: chest-pain, high blood-pressure, migraine, vomiting, stomach-ache and heart-palpitations. They had all lost considerable weight and were skin and bones.

    The doctor examined them one-by-one. Then he decided to ask them a few routine questions. “Have you not been eating? Why are you all so lean?” he asked. “We don’t have any appetite,” they replied in unison. “Besides, we have great difficulty keeping anything down.” “How long have you been feeling like this?” asked the doctor.

    “That is the most worrying part of the whole thing,” they replied. “We have been feeling like this since you became our doctor. We are convinced there is something seriously wrong with the treatment we have been receiving from you since 2015.”

    The doctor became very agitated. “You are all liars!” he shouted. “There is nothing wrong with you. You are just determined to ruin my reputation. What I want to know is this: who sent you? Who paid you to do this?”

    “Are you not a doctor?” they replied. “Can’t you see for yourself that we are sick? Have your tests not confirmed this? You may be a doctor, but you cannot tell us how we feel. You cannot tell us we are not sick when we are literally dying right here before your eyes. Is it possible to pretend and have high temperatures? Can we pretend our weight loss and hair loss? Why are you so determined to deny the truth?”

    The doctor would not be moved. “Let me tell you something. You can’t fool me. I am too knowledgeable; too experienced for this kind of trickery. You are not sick: you are just pretending. Everyone knows I am the best doctor in this country. There is no doctor North or South; East or West that can be compared to me.”

    “When I give a diagnosis, it is authoritative and final. This is my diagnosis concerning the four of you. You have never had it so good. I prescribe that you take a public holiday on June 12 so you can be refreshed and come back to your senses. Then you will realise that you have never felt better. Please leave my office now before I call the guards to throw you out.”

    Concerned Nigerians

    Last week, leaders and elders of the Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Northern Elders Forum (NEF), and the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) held a meeting in Abuja to deliberate on the situation in Nigeria. They resolved to push for a more visionary and dynamic government in order to redeem Nigeria from the captivity of poverty, insecurity and bad government.

    The meeting was attended by “timber and caliber” politicians from the different geopolitical regions of Nigeria, including former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief Edwin Clarke, Ayo Adebanjo, Professor Ango Abdullahi, Umar Ghali Na’Abba, Adolphus Wabara, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, and Dr. Hakeem Baba Ahmed.

    They concluded that the APC government of President Muhammadu Buhari is incompetent. In their communique, they lamented the fact that: “the country now witnesses unprecedented incompetence and enthronement of mediocrity in dealing with the horrendous spate of killings and general insecurity across the nation.” They claimed that: “in the eyes of many affected communities, there appears to be palpable government complicity in the killings going on around the country.”

    They noted with dismay the mismanagement of the economy by the present administration: “Today, the economy is characterized by significant loss of output, massive youth unemployment, a rising level of poverty, instability and irregular migration of skilled and unskilled labour. In fact, according to the World Bank, the unemployment rate in Nigeria has increased despite its purported exit from recession in 2017. This is a national embarrassment and a disgrace to a country that is endowed with abundant resources.”

    “According to World Data Laboratory, Nigeria overtook India this year as the poverty capital of the world. In addition, Nigeria’s ranking on the human development index was one of the lowest in the World, standing at 152 out of 188 countries surveyed in 2017.”

    They also noted with great concern that: “Despite the present administration’s war against corruption, the highly acknowledged global monitor of corruption perception, Transparency Intentional, has adjudged Nigeria to be more corrupt today than it was in 2015. It is disturbing that Nigeria has in the last 3 years degenerated from the 136th to the 148th place out of 180 countries surveyed for corruption perception in 2018.”

    “The kleptocratic nature of governance and appointments to public offices and institutions, as well as the carefree attitude of government to citizens’ discontent, have resulted in breading deep divisions and inter-communal distrust. This is a development that is of grave concern to all Nigerian patriots.”

    They observed furthermore with great alarm: “the flagrant abuse of and disrespect for the rule of law as well as the systematic violation of our electoral processes. These infractions are steadily eroding public confidence in our hard-earned democracy.”

    In a speech by Obasanjo delivered by the former governor of Osun State, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, the former president berated the harm that “the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, by his action and inaction, has done and is doing to our commonwealth and our common heritage. Nigeria, in recent times, has not been so divided along religious and regional lines as it is today with inexcusable killings and devastating poverty and with government’s wringing hands and apparently incompetent to stem the tide except giving one unrighteous and unacceptable justification after the other.”

    “The obvious indication is that the government is seemingly confused and has got to the end of its tether and the nation is being left divisively and perilously to drift.”

    Tweedledum and Tweedledee

    The people who reached these conclusions are Nigerians. They live in Nigeria so they experience the Nigerian condition. They were not talking about the Nigerian situation or the Nigerian government in abstraction. They were talking from first-hand knowledge. Their point of view is easily confirmed by the overwhelming majority of Nigerians who live in Nigeria and are not members of the Buhari administration or the APC.

    They belong to the recognized organs of the major ethnic groups in Nigeria; from East to West and North to South-South. Besides, they cannot be said to be implacable enemies of the Nigerian government. Indeed, some of them, like Ango Abdullahi and Obasanjo, were ardent supporters of the government.

    Nevertheless, Tweedledum Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, did not take kindly to their criticism. He labelled the communique as: “the shedding of crocodile tears by selfish leaders, who felt alienated after a transparent and accountable system halted their disproportionate survival on resources of the state.”

    Said Garba Shehu: “The Presidency urges Nigerians to ignore the unholy alliance by these groups who are stepping up their assault on the All Progressives Congress administration as it expands its national dominance and moves closer to securing an outright victory in the elections next year. The Presidency notes with dismay that the refrain about President Buhari not doing anything about security in the country had turned into the number one fake news item being peddled in the media.”

    Garba Shehu then referred to a statement published by Tweedledum Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President, which outlined some of the achievements of the government that are apparently oblivious to the generality of Nigerians:

    “(1) Nigerian Army’s Exercise Ayem Akpatuma covering Benue, Taraba, Kogi, Nasarawa, Kaduna and Niger States launched in February to tackle cases of kidnappings, herdsmen/farmers’ clashes, among others; (2) Nigerian Air Force establishment of three new Quick Response Wings (QRW) in Taraba, Nasarawa and Benue States respectively, and deployment of Special Forces personnel.”

    It was the same Tweedledee Adesina who opened his mouth wide and made one of the most idiotic and outrageous statements ever made in Nigerian politics concerning the issue of Fulani herdsmen killing innocent farmers in order to graze their cattle on their land. Adesina said:

    “You can only have ancestral attachment when you are alive. If you are talking about ancestral attachment, if you are dead, how does the attachment matter? So, if your state genuinely does not have land for ranching, it is understandable; not every state will have land for ranches. But where you have land and you can do something, please do for peace. What will the land be used for if those who own it are dead at the end of the day?”

    Short-sighted sycophants

    Who are these people and why do they talk like this? How much are they being paid for this sycophantic job? What happens when the job ends, as it must? Should they not be wise and prepare for the inevitable?

    They need to be told what they should know: Nigerians are no fools. A doctor does not prescribe the condition of the patient: he prescribes a cure. Garba Shehu and Femi Adesina are wasting their time trying to convince Nigerians that all is well when we know different. The patient is dying, but the doctor insists he is well. This is nonsensical.

    The tenant tells the landlord his house is on fire. But the landlord insists it is secure. This is idiotic. If the landlord cannot yet see the fire, surely, he can see the smoke. Surely, he can see that many people are running out of his house for dear life. They are throwing down their APC party badges and running out. If care is not taken, their flight might very well become a stampede.

    But Tweedledee and Tweedledum see no evil and hear no evil. They fabricate their preferred version of reality. They specialize in feeding their boss, the president, with lies and falsehood. Does he not know that Nigerians are suffering? Does he not know Nigerians are hungry? Does he not know we are jobless? Does he not know we are being killed all day long?

    How many jobs are created by rhetorics? How much electricity has anti-corruption generated? What economic miracles were achieved by the illegal pronouncement that June 12 is now Democracy Day?

    All that Tweedledum and Tweedledee want to hear are lies upon lies. Femi Adesina’s twitter page is eloquent testimony to that. People are being massacred in Benue, what has he got to say about that? He compiles praise-songs for the president: “You don’t want any life lost. You are a man of swift action. You are a bold man, action man. -Gen Atom Kpera, retd, to PMB.” “Thus far, I salute your efforts in the areas of security. -Paul Unongo to PMB.”

  • Compromised election: Buhari’s Govt. reacts to Cambridge Analytica revelations

    After TheNewsGuru reported the President Muhammadu Buhari administration silence to Cambridge Analytica revelations is alarming, the government has stood up to the occasion requesting the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) to address allegations it actually hired the data analytics firm or not.

    TheNewsGuru reports data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica and its parent company, SCL Elections, confirmed playing a role in Nigeria’s 2015 general elections, but denied it had accessed Buhari’s financial and medical records, and denied hacking into his private emails.

    “We can confirm that SCL Elections was hired in December 2014 to provide advertising and marketing services in support of the Goodluck Jonathan campaign,” SCL stated, adding: “During an election campaign, it is normal for SCL Elections to meet with vendors seeking to provide services as a subcontractor. SCL Elections did not take possession of or use any personal information from such individuals for any purposes. SCL Elections does not use ‘hacked’ or ‘stolen’ data”.

    However, several confessional statements made by employees of the firm, seven of them, with close knowledge of the campaign, showed that Cambridge Analytica did more than just providing advertising and marketing services in support of Jonathan.

    The employees, who have described how Cambridge Analytica worked with people they believed were Israeli computer hackers, who offered Cambridge Analytica the access to Buhari’s financial and medical records, confessed a Nigerian billionaire paid Cambridge Analytica about N1 billion to actually work to sway the 2015 general election votes in favour of Jonathan.

    Reacting to the development, Senior Special Assistant to President Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in Abuja said such unfair practice undermined the country’s democracy.

    “Nothing undermines a country’s democracy as such unfair practices. The Cambridge Analytica hacking scandal committed against candidate Buhari by the PDP in 2015 in which billions of Naira was paid out to the Israelis and other hackers have shown that the former ruling party lacks both the integrity and credibility to talk about election rigging. Instead of explaining their role in the scandal, the nation is greeted by stunning silence,” Shehu said.

    “Do they think this will simply blow away?” he further queried, adding: “Rigging is PDP’s main area of core competence and its party leaders are drowning men who won’t mind clutching at any straw for political survival”.

    Shehu also advised the leadership of the PDP to stop raising false alarms in order to gain public sympathy and divert attention from its “abysmal past record and failures”.

    “They should, instead, address the concerns raised about their role in the mass data harvesting at the heart of the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, following the revelation that they hacked into Candidate Muhammadu Buhari’s personal data in the run-up to the 2015 general elections.

    “That is why President Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment when they hacked into the opposition, Democratic Party records, and this is why a Special Counsel is investigating the alleged Russian interference in the US presidential election, and if President Donald Trump’s campaign is complicit in the attempted subversion of democracy in that country,” said the presidential aide.

    He also lambasted the leading opposition party for its decision to drag the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to the United Nations (UN) over alleged plan or plot to rig the 2019 general elections, describing the PDP move as “not only laughable and puerile”, but that it “also demonstrate the level of desperation that is haunting the opposition leaders”.

    Shehu said President Buhari was passionately committed to free and fair elections in the country, noting: “and for a man who joined forces with local and international observers to ensure a free and fair election which brought him to power in 2015, the President would under no circumstances tolerate any attempt to derail constitutional democracy.

    “The outcome of the gubernatorial elections in Edo, Ondo and Anambra States stand as clear examples of President Buhari’s commitment to free and fair elections in the country, and Nigerians should indeed be wary of PDP’s desperate propaganda.

    “For the PDP to be preaching free and fair elections is like a street-walker preaching about chastity.

    “We must recall that the PDP postponed the 2015 general elections in the guise of national security challenges because defeat was staring it starkly in the face. However, despite the delay tactics, it was resoundingly defeated when the polls finally held.

    “The PDP has lost every moral ground and it is mortally afraid of facing the 2019 general elections because Nigerians will always remember their past and punish them one more time for economically plundering the country.”

    According to Shehu, “by dragging the United Nations into its political propaganda, the PDP is indirectly suggesting that it is afraid to face the voters in 2019.

    “Rather than hiding behind allegations of a plot to rig the elections, the opposition party should work harder to win back the trust of voters instead of spreading the false alarm to gain international sympathy.

    “It is unfortunate that the PDP is desperately trying all dirty tricks, including the exploitation of tragedy, for political advantage.”

    However, Shehu, and the presidency is yet to address the part of the revelations that alludes Buhari and his team hired AKPD, the firm of former Barack Obama strategist David Axelrod, to push slick-social-media-heavy, Obama-esque message of hope in favour of Buhari.

     

  • Stop defending a ‘bad product’ – CAN warns Buhari’s spokesperson, Garba Shehu

    The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has warned the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on media, Mallam Garba Shehu to stop defending a ‘bad product.’

    Reacting to comments made by CAN, through its Secretary General, Musa Asake, at a press conference on January 16, Mr. Shehu had denied claims that the current administration was enmeshed in acts tantamount to destroying Nigeria’s democracy.

    Mr. Shehu said Mr. Buhari’s government “poses no threat to the country’s democracy and Constitution.”

    “There are no cases of any violation of our sacred constitution and there will be none under this President,” the presidential spokesperson said.

    In a similar development, the Jama’atu Nasril Islam JNI also in a statement by its Secretary General, Khalid Aliyu, accused CAN of destroying the cordial relationship between Christians and Muslims by persisting in its purported allegations, aimed at “destabilising the polity ahead of the 2019 general elections”.

    Reacting to both statements, Mr. Asake listed sections of the constitution the association believes has been abused by the administration.

    “Frankly speaking, Garba Shehu should be pitied with his current position because he is trying to sell a bad product and as a result he cannot do without being sycophantic. Unfortunately for him, in his bid to defend President Muhammadu Buhari, whose government’s record for nepotism, favoritism and discrimination is second to none, Shehu goofed by claiming that he could not cite any valid cases of constitutional violations.

    “It is apparently clear that Shehu did not read the full text of my address at the Press Conference before kicking against it otherwise, he would have kept quiet. Because in my address, I said inter alia, “…By failing to curb the attacks of the Fulani herdsmen President Buhari has failed to uphold Section 14, Para. 2 (b) in the Constitution which reads, “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.

    “Through his partial, sectional and discriminatory appointments, particularly in Security and Education, President Buhari violated Section 14, Para. 3 which reads: “The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few State or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies,” the CAN secretary said in a statement on Friday.

    Mr. Asake further said in his statement, that it was the duty of church leaders to help politicians lead the country well.

    Regarding the statement by the JNI, CAN accused the Islamic body of handling national issues with kid gloves, saying that the JNI secretary erred when he related the herdsmen perpetrating recent killings in the country to a branch of the Christian association.

    “The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) wishes to protest the lack of seriousness and kindergarten approach of JNI to serious national issues. We are amazed that the spokesman of Jama’atu Nasril Islam could ascribe the ownership and control of Fulani herdsmen to any Christian organisation. Such attempt to stand reason on its head does not portray JNI as a serious minded organisation.

    “We used to assume that JNI is a credible and responsible organization that can meaningfully engage in national discourse. Unfortunately, the response of Dr. Khalid Abubakar Aliyu is a great disappointment.

    “May we suggest to his Eminence, the President of Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, to reach into the community of educated Muslims and find serious minded individuals that could engage in serious national issues to speak for JNI.

    “The Fulani herdsmen are Muslims. For the herdsmen, it would be considered demeaning if anyone should ascribe any other religion apart from Islam to them. Therefore, for anyone to suggest that the Fulani herdsmen are “franchise” of CAN is the most unimaginative and ridiculous statement of the century,” the statement said.

     

  • Buhari’s Absence: Presidency dismisses report on political, constitutional crisis

    Buhari’s Absence: Presidency dismisses report on political, constitutional crisis

    Presidential spokesman Garba Shehu has dismissed an article speculating that Nigeria faces imminent political and constitutional crisis on account of President Muhammadu Buhari’s absence to attend to his health in London.

    The article was written by a Nigerian historian, Max Siollun, entitled “The Gentleman’s Agreement that Could Break Apart Nigeria,” published in the United States-based Foreign Policy magazine.

    Shehu, who is also the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, described the article as “needlessly sensational and exaggerated speculations by conspiracy theorists’’.

    The presidential aide explained that it was misleading to compare President Buhari’s case to that of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, adding that the circumstances were completely different.

    According to him, unlike Yar’Adua, President Buhari has duly complied with the constitutional requirements by formally notifying the National Assembly of his intention to go for medical treatment and handing over to Prof. Yemi Osinbajo as Acting President.

    “While Yar’Adua was too severely ill to transmit a letter formally to the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, President Buhari is not in such medical state, and therefore, the country is not currently facing any complications on account of his absence,’’ he added.

    He noted that under Yar’Adua, there was uncertainty about the role of the Vice President because the late President was not in a position to formally transfer power to his deputy, which necessitated the resort to the doctrine of necessity to enable Dr. Goodluck Jonathan to act in his absence.

    The media aide explained that “currently, none of these circumstances prevail in Nigeria on account of President Buhari’s absence for medical treatment’’.

    According to him, having transferred power formally to Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, President Buhari did not leave Nigeria with any power vacuum.

    “Therefore, any suggestions of uncertainty or constitutional crisis are imaginary and exaggerated.’’

    He explained that with the Acting President Osinbajo already running the affairs of the country in the absence of President Buhari, people should stop creating artificial fears of crisis or uncertainty.

    He noted that governance had not grounded to a halt because President Buhari had duly complied with the constitution.

    Shehu appealed to conspiracy theorists not to pollute the polity by needlessly seeking to create an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and suspicions in the country.

    The media aide said that the president publicly admitted he was sick and taking treatment and that he never pretended about his health condition, with the open admission.

     

  • Presidency confirms shooting in Aso Rock

    ImageFile: Presidency confirms shooting at Aso Rock
    President Muhammadu Buhari.

    The Nigerian government has confirmed that there was shooting at the nation’s seat of power, Abuja on Wednesday, saying it was an “accidental discharge” while assuring that the Villa is safe for Nigerians and foreigners alike.

    This was contained in a State House press release signed by Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity.

    “Following an incident involving the accidental gun discharge in the State House on Wednesday, the Presidency wishes to reassure all Nigerians and foreigners of the safety of the seat of power in the country,” the statement read.

    It was reported that an incident of shooting occurred at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Wednesday involving one of the security agents attached to the Presidential Villa, which left a lady severely injured.

    But Buhari’s aide has said “the security official involved is not attached to the State House”.

    “He came on invitation as a witness in an ongoing investigation and was required, as is the rule, to surrender his weapon at the gates before entry,” he said, adding that “It was in the process of conducting the normal safety precaution as professionally required that the pistol accidentally fired”.

    The media and publicity aide to Buhari, however, confirmed that the lady was hit by the “accidental” shot. He also said the security operative was affected as well.

    “Unfortunately, the security operative and the lady by his side, a caterer in the State House, were hit by a pellet of the bullet,” Shehu said.

    “Both of them were attended to at the clinic and discharged,” he added.

  • Garba Shehu and that MTN’s Christmas greetings of errors and hypocrisy

    By Jude Ndukwe
    On 25th December, Christmas day, when all people of peace and goodwill all over the world whose humanity has transcended religious barrier in a world savagely afflicted by religious extremism were wishing their Christian citizens, friends and customers a merry Christmas as a demonstration of the fact that despite our differences in religion and beliefs, the wounds of the world can still be healed, some two entities decided to make a mischief of the season and its reason.
    While making arduous attempts at wishing Nigerians a merry Christmas without mentioning the usual phrase ‘merry Christmas’, Garba Shehu, who is one of the several authoritative voices of the Buhari administration blatantly fluffed the chance to further assure Christians that the Buhari administration bears no ill-will towards them despite widespread belief to the contrary and growing discontent among them.
    With the perceived deliberate malicious actions of this administration against Christians and their interests, Christmas was a time to heal wounds and reassure all and sundry that the Buhari- administration is not on a “Jihad” against the Christians, and that it is a government for all Nigerians irrespective of their ethnic origin, political affiliation or religious leaning.
    Following the wanton destruction of lives and property by Islamist Fulani herdsmen terrorists in Southern Kaduna, an area predominantly populated by Christians, the murderous invasion of communities in Ekiti, Abia, Enugu, Ondo, Benue, Ebonyi etc by these same extremists, one would have expected a Christmas greeting from the presidency to be exactly what it is: a Christmas message.
    In sending out what he carved as a Christmas message, Garba Shehu had tweeed thus: “As the year 2016 comes to a dead end, I wish you a festive season and a happier year ahead. Regards to your dear ones”.
    Although Shehu quickly deleted the tweet and replaced it with something more reasonable after a torrent of backlash that followed, the damage had already been done by then.
    If there was any hope in this administration left in Nigerians, Shehu’s message effectively brought it to an abrupt end. Somehow, Shehu finds himself confirming what Nigerians have always known: that the year 2016 has come to a ‘dead end’ (for the administration) indeed following the gross incompetence and flagrant display of extreme tyranny and fascist tendencies by the Buhari administration which has brought untold hardship to the people.
    Also, an error in that message occurred when Garba Shehu wished Nigerians a ‘festive season’. It might just be another way of avoiding to wish us joy at Christmas, for it makes no sense at all to wish a people a festive season which is akin to just wishing people ‘Christmas’ without the ‘merry’ part of it, for festive season is Christmas and Christmas is festive season.
    As if taking a cue from the presidency on playing dangerously on our delicate fault lines, the Chief Operating Officer of MTN, a South African telecommunication giant, Muhammad Siddiqui, added salt to injury with his own ‘Christmas messag’ where he, like Garba Shehu, deliberately left out the phrase ‘merry Christmas’ while wishing its customers only a “peaceful end-of-the-year celebration and a happy new year” as if he has defined Christmas message to mean an end-of-the-year message.
    The deliberate omission of the word Christmas in Christmas messages by non-Christians speaks volume of those who pass such messages. It is a clear sign of the extreme aversion such people have for Christians and their faith.
    It is therefore not surprising that, like Garba Shehu, the MTN COO might have also proven to be an extremist Muslim, for unlike reasonable Muslims, these two expose their low esteem and the disdain they hold for other people who do not share the same faith as theirs.
    As if this was not enough, the video footage that accompanied Mr Siddiqui’s message, according to The TrentOnline, had a winter background and an image of Father Christmas flying away with his reindeers (to clearly indicate that it is intended to be a Christmas message) also had a crescent which is a very prominent symbol of Islam on it.
    This is nothing but a deliberate act of provocation and an attempt to ridicule Christianity by a company that enjoys a minimum of 60% of its market share in Nigeria from Christians.
    From ‘Project Fame’ to Who ‘Wants to be a Millionaire’ etc, a majority of the participants are Christians!
    These actions may sound innocuous, but the history of extreme Islamists show that they usually “test the ground” with similar very innocuous words, actions and approaches to issues, and once what greets such actions is silence, they proceed to the next level of subjugating and oppressing people of other faiths until it graduates to a full blown crisis.
    This is where Christians in Nigeria have to wake up and take action against MTN. It is our silence and active cooperation with political conspirators and haters of our people and faith that have seen to the enthronement of a regime that seem to be on a relentless pursuit of an agenda to bring Christianity in Nigeria to its knees.
    History has shown that tyrannical governments usually enlist the services and or cooperation of rich corporate organizations and rich and powerful individuals to achieve their wicked ends.
    These similar unfriendly “Christmas” greetings of errors and hypocrisy from government and MTN at the same period might not be a mere coincidence after all.
    It is quite hypocritical of a company like MTN to side-step the phrase ‘merry Christmas’ in its Christmas greetings to Nigerians for whatever reason but is happy to accept money from the same Christians who patronize their numerous products and services.
    It reminds one of Kano, another Muslim dominated State, where consumption of alcohol is haram but it collects some of the largest shares of revenue from federal VAT including the ones collected on alcohol in other states.
    Did someone just mention chichidodo, that Ayi Kwei Armah’s mythical bird that hates excrement with all its soul but feeds merrily on maggots?
    Those who do not agree with MTN’s divisive Christmas message must find a very strong way of passing their feelings to MTN. No more will Christians allow anyone no matter how highly placed or connected to take the Christian faith for granted in Nigeria.
    Boycott of MTN’s services and products for a self-determined time is one way to pass this message.
    It is even most unfortunate that MTN would employ a COO who is either not abreast with the delicate matters of religion in Nigeria or one who chose to be mischievous with such a highly sensitive issue to serve in the country.
    Either way, it is a descent into infamy for MTN and an indictment on some non-Christian presidency officials, and unless some urgent healing steps are taken, the nation itself is approaching an irreversible state of crisis under President Muhammadu Buhari!
    We must however acknowledge our Muslim friends, neighbours, colleagues and associates who wished Christians a proper merry Christmas with love and peace from their hearts. We urge them to go a step further to educate and liberate others who struggle to felicitate wholeheartedly with those who celebrate.
    Former president Goodluck Jonathan did not only wish Muslims in Nigeria and the whole world joy and peace during their festivities, he also publicly observed the Muslim fasting and prayers and joined them in celebrating Sallah and others with much conviviality while he was president, a practice he has continued even beyond his presidency.
    That is the hallmark of a leader, and that is the least Nigerians expect from their leaders and corporate organizations!
    —jrndukwe@yahoo.co.uk; Twitter: StJudeNdukwe