Buhari Not in a Rush to Fix the Economy - Garba Shehu

For Nigerians who expect a quick fix of the economy from Presi­dent Muhammadu Bu­hari, they will have to wait for a long time as the Presidency has said that the Federal Gov­ernment will not rush to do so.
The Presidency said that Buhari is taking time to build solid structures upon which the Nigerian economy can firmly stand and will therefore need more time to undertake the task.
According to the Senior Special Assistant to the Pres­ident on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, once the structures are in place, Nigeria will in no time be out of its cur­rent economic mess.
Shehu therefore pleaded with Nigerians to exercise more patience so that the President can turnaround the economy, describing Buhari as a “long distance runner rather than a sprinter.”
In an interactive session or­ganised by the Citizen Support for Good Governance in Nige­ria (CSGGN) in Abuja at the weekend, Shehu enumerated the achievements of the Buhari ad­ministration within its short stay in office and appealed to Nige­rians to appreciate the achieve­ments the President has record­ed in the spheres of security and anti-corruption campaign.
He insisted that the president has achieved a lot in the securi­ty sector of the country, stressing that the fight against the Boko Haram insurgents has yielded an enormous dividend, arguing that the Boko Haram insurgents would have taken over the seat of power, Aso Rock, had the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) under former President Goodluck Jon­athan continued in office.
Shehu said: “Your support for Muhammadu Buhari, I as­sure you, will not be in vain. If you look at him, he has achieved eve­rything one desires to achieve and he chose the military career and rose to become an army general. Beyond that, he became a military head of state.
“So, if the ambition of one is to rule one’s country he has achieved that already. But Pres­ident Buhari fought three times and won on the fourth count with the firm belief that he has some­thing to offer the future genera­tions of this country. In essence, what I am saying is that he doesn’t have a personal wish for fortune, power, or to acquire houses or money, no! That is not Buhari.”
“He wants a future that is se­cure and stable for the younger generations. This why in his mes­sages he has stayed on three key issues; he has reported this over and over again, that this country cannot make any progress with­out security.”
“Look at all the efforts that have been put in tackling Boko Haram. There are many people who believe that if not for Pres­ident Buhari, and if PDP had continued to rule this country in 2015, Boko Haram would have taken over Aso Rock by now.
“We have achieved so much in terms of security. On the war against corruption people are stealing money, huge amounts of money, the kind of money that they don’t need; what do you need that kind of money for?
He also noted that the intro­duction of the whistleblowing policy has started yielding results in the country.
“The president is working hard to restructure the economy; this is very much misunderstood by Nigerians. Unfortunately, it is easier to destroy than to build. We met a situation that the economy had been ravaged and people are used to lifestyles that can no long­er be sustained. No country will develop when you have to import everything, including toothpicks and tissue paper”.
Shehu’s explanations were however greeted with different reactions from the gathering, even as a member of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the All Pro­gressives Congress (APC), Mr. Ismaila Ahmed, insisted that the APC will hold Buhari account­able for the fulfilment of all the party’s campaign promises in 2015.
Ahmed, who pleaded with members of his party and the Presidency to be open to criti­cisms, noted that the adminis­tration must convince Nigerians with their performances.
According to him: “As a gov­ernment, we have to be open to criticisms. Some people are not happy and they have to express their frustration; people have to express their anger, we cannot and we should not have a prob­lem with that.”
“We campaigned all through because I headed the youth wing during the campaigns. I knew from day one that it is not going to be an easy task, even the Presi­dent knew it won’t be an easy task. So, the responsibility is not for us to start promising anymore be­cause we are two years into the administration.
“This administration has to convince us by its own perfor­mance and not its own promises anymore. We made promises dur­ing campaigns, now we have to act on those promises and that is what the President will continue to do.”
“Our responsibility as mem­bers of this party is to tell Mr. President ‘you can choose who you can work with but we will make sure that we can hold you and those you appoint to account, how you do that work because of the promises we made outside’”, he stated.
Earlier, the CSGGN’s Na­tional Convener, Moses Abdul­lahi, told the gathering that Ni­gerian youths are at the receiving end of various lootings that have taken place in the past, hence the need to support the present gov­ernment of President Buhari to fight corruption to a standstill.