The Presidency has blamed former President Goodluck Jonathan for President Muhammadu Buhari’s five month delay in forming a federal cabinet.
Presidential spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu, levelled the allegation during an appearance on Channels Television’s morning breakfast show, Sunrise, upon charges that the president was slow.
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in a sharp response said the delay and the excuse were indicative of the incompetence manifesting in the present administration.
Meanwhile, reacting to Shehu’s comment, PDP in a statement by its spokesman, Kola Ologondiyan, said the admission was a clear display of incompetence, adding: “It is unfortunate that the Presidency will always resort to peddling falsehood as a cover for its failures. “It is a settled matter that President Buhari could not form a cabinet for over five months after his inauguration, primarily due to sheer incompetence, lack of preparedness and the fact that he was overwhelmed by the complexity of the office of the President of Nigeria.”
Reacting also, Dr Jonathan through his media adviser, Ikechukwu Eze, expressed concern over what he claimed as the unending habit of the Buhari administration even near election to blame the past administration for its perceived failures. He said: “Assuming, without conceding, that the last administration was as bad as they want Nigerians to believe, is it not a fact of governance that it is the duty of every responsible administration to seek to make better the situation it met on ground?
Anything less than that is a proof of incompetence for which a failed administration has no moral justification to ask for a fresh mandate. “While members of the current administration continue to blame President Jonathan for their failure to deliver on their mandate, they should be reminded that there are many African success stories that proved that a progress-minded administration has no business focusing only on the past.”
Garba spoke upon the claim by Phrank Shuaibu, a spokesman of the Atiku Abubakar campaign that Buhari’s delay in constituting a cabinet contributed to the factors that pushed the country into recession following Buhari’s assumption of power. Responding, Shehu said the former administration kept Buhari in the dark until two days to the inauguration.
He said: “The claims made by my dear friend here that President Buhari spent 166 days without forming a cabinet, that absolutely is untrue. 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 Buhari that this country will not have two governments running at the same.”
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