BREAKING NEWS, Politics
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SOME ministers who served under former President Goodluck Jonathan are not happy with the government of President Muhammadu Buhari. The ministers said it was unfair that the Buhari administration and members of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, had been condemning, ridiculing and undermining the efforts of the immediate past Jonathan administration.
The minsters noted both the president and his party had also been rubbishing the integrity of the individual members of the past administration and warned them to desist forthwith.
Abubakar Suleiman, a former minister of National Planning, in a statement issued on Sunday, August 30, on behalf of other ministers who served in the Jonathan administration, said the efforts of the Buhari government had been to portray all members of the Jonathan administration “as corrupt and irresponsible, in an orchestrated and vicious trial by the media.” He said this had created “a lynch mentality that discredits our honest contributions to the growth and development of our beloved nation.”
He said while he and his colleagues believed that each administration had the right to chart its own path, the the former minister said the alleged vilification of the Jonathan administration was ill-intentioned.
Suleiman’s statement said in part: “While we concede that every administration has the right to chart its own path as it deems fit, we nevertheless consider the vilification of the Jonathan administration, to be ill-intentioned, unduly partisan, and in bad faith.
“We are proud to have served Nigeria and we boldly affirm that we did so diligently and to the best of our abilities. The improvements that have been noticed today in the power sector, in national security and in social services and other sectors did not occur overnight.
“They are products of solid foundations laid by the same Jonathan administration.”
He said that contrary to what the APC and its agents would want the public to believe, the Jonathan administration did not encourage corruption, “rather it fought corruption vigorously, within the context of the rule of law and due process.”
“For the benefit of those who may have forgotten so soon, it was the Jonathan administration that got rid of the fraud in fertiliser subsidies, which had plagued the country for decades. This helped to unleash a revolution in agricultural production and productivity,” he said.
Responding to the ministers’ statement, the Presidency, said in a statement that Buhari’s war against corruption was not negotiable.
The current administration has alleged several fraudulent practices against Jonathan’s ministers, including a recent allegation that Diezani Alison Madueke, a former minister of Petroleum Resources, illegally took $6.9m from the coffers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, to fund the bogus purchase of three mobile stages for Jonathan’s public appearances.
Garba Shehu, senior special assistant to the president on Media and Publicity, asked the former ministers who he described as “members of the country’s latest trade union formation, the Association of Ex-Jonathan Ministers” to do a bit of self-reflection on the sort of government they handed over to Buhari on May 29.
He said such self-reflection would make the former ministers decide for themselves if it would have been right for any incoming government to ignore the issue of the brazen theft of public assets, which he said, appeared to be the first of its kind in the country,
He said: “This war against corruption knows no friend nor foe. There is no intention to deny anyone of their good name where they are entitled to it and President Buhari reserves the highest regards for the country’s former leaders, including Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, who he continues to praise to the high heavens for the way and manner in which he accepted defeat in the last election.
“That singular action remains a feat that has earned the former president and Nigeria as country befitting commendations all over the world, the latest coming from Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who visited a week ago.
“For the purpose of emphasis, the issue of fighting corruption by President Buhari is not negotiable.
“It is sine qua non to the overall reconstruction of the economy and social systems, which suffered destruction and severe denigration under the last administration.
“President Buhari will not be deterred or blackmailed into retreat and surrender.”
— Aug 31, 2015 @ 14:00 GMT
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