100 Days: So much has changed for Nigerians —Lai Mohammed
on september 06, 2015 at 1:22 am in buhari's 100 days
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By Dapo Akinrefon
ALHAJI Lai Mohammed is the  National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC. In this interview, the APC spokesman takes stock of the 100 days in office of President Muhammadu Buhari and boasts that change has come to Nigeria. Excerpts:

Lai Mohammed
What has changed in Nigeria in the first 100 days of APC’s rule at the centre?
Well, I think a lot has changed. There is this new attitude that there is a leadership in Nigeria today that can inspire Nigerians to dream again. There is this change in Nigeria  that, for the first time in a long time, we have a leadership that is capable of bringing about the necessary change.
I believe also that the last three months has witnessed a certain relationship between Nigeria and the external world in the sense that Nigeria, that was regarded as a pariah state, has now become a Mecca of sort to foreign dignitaries, like the United Nations Secretary General and our president is now being invited to everywhere in the world. All of a sudden, Nigerians are now proud to be Nigerians and I think this is very important.
Again, what has changed in Nigeria is that people are beginning to see that corruption is  a vice and that it is not something to be celebrated. Before now, we were celebrating corrupt people but, today, Nigerians are gradually moving back to our old values of integrity, probity, transparency and merit.
These are things that I believe have changed at the level of what I call the  tangible. At the level of the intangible, I think the last 100 days has seen a coordinated, focused and methodical attack on insecurity and terrorism.
The last 100 days has witnessed a successful rallying of all our neighbors, region and the entire world to assist in the fight against Boko Haram.
The president has succeeded in rallying the support of, first, our neighbors like Cameroon, Benin Republic, Chad and Niger; the G7 has given us support and the United States is suspending a  law to enable us combat  insurgency. On the domestic scene also, we now have a rejuvenated army, it is taking the battle to the insurgents.
We  have a new army with a very high moral ‘because of certain steps taken by the president such as moving the command and control of the army to the North-East. We also now have our service chiefs leading the war. They are also interacting with the soldiers. The president is so confident that he has given the  service chiefs three months deadline to finish the war against insurgency. In the area of security I think even the most ardent critic of the president must give him kudos.
He must have so much impressed the international community about his fight against insurgency that the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki Moon invited him to come and join other world leaders in a global conference geared at combating extremism.
So, these are things that show that in the area of security, the president has done a lot. Of course, he has ordered the recruitment if 10,000  policemen to assist in the fight against insurgency.
In the area of the economy, I think what he has done, which is unappreciated by Nigerians, is the bail out package which he arranged for  the states. You see, by the time we assumed office   on May 29, about 20 states of the federation were owing between five and 10 months  salary arrears. If not for the bail out package that the president approved, today, we would be facing industrial crisis of a magnitude never witnessed.
 
But some Nigerians posit that the reason for the unpaid salaries to civil servants  was mismanagement on the part of  state governors.
I see it as an  infantile argument and childish. There is absolutely no evidence that every state that was unable to pay workers’ salary was as a result of corruption on the part of the governors.
What we know is that between 2010 and 2014, the three tiers of government were sharing between N840 billion every month but, by the end of last year, the average they were sharing was under N380 billion. This means that states, because of the crash of the price of crude, were getting less than what they used to get before.
If the argument is that states that were unable to pay their staff salaries was because of corruption,then are you now saying that the federal parastatals and ministries that were owed money, was also because of corruption?
I think that argument is simplistic.  Again, that argument overlooks the fact that when a state is unable to oY staff salaries, it affects, not just the morale of the people but also  the  lives of the people because these people have to pay rent, send their children to school. Are you now saying that because a particular governor has been reckless, therefore, civil servants must not be paid? It does not make sense. The bailout package given to the states, is optional.
 
States are free to apply, those that believe they are not owing arrears of staff salaries do not have to. It has also in a way strengthened the economy.
I think anybody that sees this from the narrow perspective that the bailout is going to encourage corruption, is been unfair. I think the government has started laying the foundation for accountability and transparency when it ordered that all money accruing to government should be paid into what we call the Treasury Single Account.
This is the beginning of accountability and transparency because when the money is  paid in, the government will know what  it has at a glance. I think the reform that has been brought into the oil and gas sector is quite spectacular.
Also, the government has made it clear and has laid the foundation for diversification of the economy. Here, we are looking at agriculture, mining, the telecommunication sector and it intends to pay less emphasis on oil so that we would not be affected by the volatility in the oil and gas sector as we are suffering now.
In the area of fighting corruption, the president has been unrelenting and he has vowed we would recover all stolen money and, in doing so, he has the support of not just Nigerians, but also  the international community and they are ready to assist us to trace looted funds wherever  they are kept and they also going to assist us in repatriating such. The fight against corruption, to me, is the most controversial.
 
Yes, because it is perceived to be selective. Why?
Well, there is nothing being selective in  the fight  against  corruption. When you are fighting corruption, you should also expect corruption to fight you back. Corruption in Nigeria has  large followership and  strong foundation. So, if you are going to fight corruption, you must also be ready to absorb the challenges and attacks by corruption.
When people say the fight against corruption is selective, it is  corrupt  people  fighting back. How can you say the fight against corruption is selective when corruption itself is not selective?
Corruption has no political party, no tribe, it has no religion and if you go by the records before us today, we have APC politicians being investigated, we have PDP members being investigated.
 
We have northerners, Christians, Muslims being investigated; so what are we talking about?
The truth of the matter is that in this fight against corruption, members of a political party would be more prone for investigation than others. In the last 16 years, they (PDP) have been in power, so if you are going to probe the administration of Dr Goodluck Jonathan, you must probe his appointees, his contractors, his employees because they are largely from the PDP..
So,  is a clear case of probing those you think are responsible for the bad state of the economy. There is nothing selective about it, what we see is corruption also fighting back. I think this is one area the president has succeeded largely.
The biggest victory we have had in fighting corruption for the first time in Nigeria is that Nigerians are now appreciating the fact that corruption is bad, it is a vice and that corruption is the second most deadly obstacle to our progress. Before now, we were celebrating corruption.
Before now, it was said that stealing is not corruption but, today, people know that stealing is corruption. What you see now is that everybody is sitting up and for the first time in Nigeria, people are doing what we  call self regulation and self censoring because they know that there is a new sheriff in town and that the sheriff is a no-nonsense sheriff.
 
Angry reactions greeted the denial by President Buhari of his promises to Nigerians in his first 100 days in office. Why is he reneging on the promise?
When you say somebody is denying, he must have said it. I am so shocked about the hysteria greeting the administration’s 100 days. Nobody can produce a document in which the party or the president said he was going to do anything within 100 days. If anybody took the time to do a thorough search on the president’s response at Chatham House when the question was asked: “What do you want to achieve within the first 100 days?”, his answer was clear: “I don’t believe in the fraud called 100 days, we believe in milestones.” So, how can you now say this same president promised to deliver anything in 100 days? Do you build schools in 100 days?
The truth of the matter is that there is no document, no record, no proof that the president ever promised anybody, anything in 100 days. Whatever they are coming up with, is just forgery. The most conclusive evidence is what the president said in Chatham House and he said this in March, 2015. I was there, it is not correct, it is not true. Now we have all kinds of things on the blog and on the internet but the truth if the matter is that the president said “I do not believe in 100 days”. It is a fraud and I do not want to be part of that fraud.
 
Recent  appointments made by the president has generated uproar as they are seen to be lopsided. What is your position on this?
I think it is about time Nigerians  start thinking as Nigerians, we do not even believe we are a nation. We do not care whether the country survives or not, we must change this attitude.
Having said this, it is not possible for the president to expect that every part of the country would be respected in the appointments  in the first, second or third month of a government. It is not possible to expect that making 35 appointments would give you the balance you need when you are still going to make over 1,000 appointments. I think people are a bit impatient. In my view, people are not being fair to Mr President. You see, when you look at the nature of the last appointments that were made, at least four out of six, were personal staff. The Chief of Staff, is a personal staff and you do not choose as Chief of Staff somebody you are not comfortable with.
I have been privileged to be a Chief of Staff before, so I know what it takes. I was Chief of Staff to Asiwaju Bola  Ahmed Tinubu. I was the first person he saw in the morning and the last person he saw at night, I was his confidant and the relationship was intimate that I could enter his bedroom if there was an emergency.
You cannot appoint somebody you are not comfortable with as your Chief of Staff. The same goes for your Special Adviser on Legislative Matters. He must be a person familiar with the intrigues in  the National Assembly, he must be a person who believes fervently in the president and can look after his interest in the National Assembly.
The same thing applies to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation; he is the man who keeps the record of government; he must be a man who the president can call on any time and he must also know the president very well.
Having said this, I want to use this opportunity to assure Nigerians that, in the fullest of time, no part of Nigeria will be able to complain about northernisation when all the appointments are made. It is true that the president has spoken about integrity and competence as yardstick for appointments, but this should not pose a problem to federal character because we know that there is no part of Nigeria where  we do not have competent people with integrity.
 
Nigerians expect more from the president but he has been dubbed ‘Baba Go Slow’. What should Nigerians expect from the APC-led government at the centre?
I must first say that those who say the president has been slow, are eating their words now because the kind of activities we have witnessed in the last 100 days cannot, by any yardstick, be said to be slow. If a man has been elected into office for 48 months and he spends just four months to plan and get the team that he wants, he should not be seen as being slow.
In any event, there has been movement, not just motion, in governance. All the achievements I have listed were done under 100 days. You can see that there is more stability in power, the queues have disappeared at petrol stations. This is what I call the Buhari-effect and this is just because he is the leader, it is the leadership effect.
Those  who say that he has been slow, apart from the fact that the ministers are yet to be appointed, the critical appointments have been made.



http://linkis.com/htl.li/kcJ2W

We shall get there fellow nigerians

Liar Mohammed

Lai / Liar Mohammed - As his name reads so are his comments / statements.

The charterm house speech say it all. Buhari is the definition of integrity. He always talk with caution. He chose his words to match his personality. He don't speak much so that he don't end up goofing. Based on his campaign promises where he is always careful in selecting his word, it will be difficult to hold him against anything. "I will fight corruption, insecurity and unemployment". The smartest campaign promises ever made by a Nigerian. I remember back then in school, you will be amazed by the promises made by student contesting dept president. I am happy with the pace PMB is governing nigeria. What about u? Let b objective pls. If u are a like mind, pls hit "like" for PMB.

This is coming from a man who on liveTv(ChannelsTV) said he and his entire party, could not peruse or read through a 2800 pages dossier. Only an educated illiterate or a full blown illiterate will take as fact the statement of such a man. The President, has done NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING, period.

muri4mig:
The chartem house say it all. Buhari is the definition of integrity. He always talk with caution. He chose his words to match his personality. He don't speak much so that he don't end up goofing. Based on his campaign promises where he is always careful in selecting his word, it will be difficult to have anything against him. I will fight corruption, insecurity and unemployment.

Please enlighten me on the location of Chatham house. Is it in Ikeja, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano or Awka. What states in our federation, do the members of Chatham house own their origin. Which of our notable and dignified individuals was present at the conference in Chatham House. On what television network, was the conference aired, for easy access to Nigerians.
Chatham house owns its allegiance supposedly to the international community and not us. This is not 1960. Whatever promise, he made there is only binding on the members of Chatham house, due to the Chatham house rule. We take as his word, what was said, here in Nigeria, not in some foreign NGO tea committee.

LEOSIRSIR:
We shall get there fellow nigerians

We shall get there on what, a MAGIC CARPET. Governance is based on strategy, influence, diplomacy, policies, research and action, not on make believe.

Abeg anybody wey read am all shud plz summaryz it 2 us!

hinwazaka:

Please enlighten me on the location of Chatham house. Is it in Ikeja, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano or Awka. What states in our federation, do the members of Chatham house own their origin. Which of our notable and dignified individuals was present at the conference in Chatham House. On what television network, was the conference aired, for easy access to Nigerians.
Chatham house owns its allegiance supposedly to the international community and not us. This is not 1960. Whatever promise, he made there is only binding on the members of Chatham house, due to the Chatham house rule. We take as his word, what was said, here in Nigeria, not in some foreign NGO tea committee.

let's be objective pls. Leaders all over the world make statement when need arises. Sometime they response to question thrown at them to respond to emerging issues. He was asked the question at chatam house and he responded to it their. I am sure he will have provided the same response in nigeria if nigeria journalist ask him the same question in nigeria. Pls where does NSA Dasuki first hinted the shifting of the 2015 election from Feb to March? Most time leaders made announcement and intervention by responding to question from media or when making some clarification. So don't dispute PMB on the bases that he made the clarification at chatam house because that was where the journalist asked him the question. He cannot be every where to make the clarification. Do u expect him to come to ur neighborhood to make a comment before you believe in what he say or do?. Think through again, u will see sense in what I have just said.

muri4mig:
let's be objective pls. Leaders all over the world make statement when need arises. Sometime they response to question thrown at them to respond to emerging issues. He was asked the question at chatam house and he responded to it their. I am sure he will have provided the same response in nigeria if nigeria journalist ask him the same question in nigeria. Pls where does NSA Dasuki first hinted the shifting of the 2015 election from Feb to March? Most time leaders made announcement and intervention by responding to question from media or when making some clarification. So don't dispute PMB on the bases that he made the clarification at chatam house because that was where the journalist asked him the question. He cannot be every where to make the clarification. Do u expect him to come to ur neighborhood to make a comment before you believe in what he say or do?. Think through again, u will see sense in what I have just said.

let's be realistic here. We can not base our expectations on a speech the President made in the UK. He was asked the same questions here, but then his statements changed. Mr Dasuki's case is entirely different. Mr Dasuki was invited to Chatham House to explain the delay in elections to the international community, and to assuage international interests, who did not want to see violence and instability in the largest black populated country in the world. I don't expect to see him in my backyard, but I do expect to see him on my TV set, making his case known on a local network, or on a debate. I mean no offence, when I say you made no sense at all.

I never take this man serious! He should just keep his forked tongue caged behind his teeth already!




Didn't even read the pile of douche!

The 100days of PBM are quite satisfactory, Aldo not d clean white socks we desire,but from clear indications, der is a perceived knowledge dat we honestly didn't make d wrong choice! For those dat belives odawise, well to me its normal. its impossible for everyone to say all is well.
But one thing dat i know is u cannot compromise merit nor can u substitute it for either mediocrity or pretentious ignorance..

Too long, summary version pls

Does anyone take this lying machine serious?? Like seriously??

I don't need a summary the name LIA (r)... sums it all
Crying cryers over to u

hinwazaka:

let's be realistic here. We can not base our expectations on a speech the President made in the UK. He was asked the same questions here, but then his statements changed. Mr Dasuki's case is entirely different. Mr Dasuki was invited to Chatham House to explain the delay in elections to the international community, and to assuage international interests, who did not want to see violence and instability in the largest black populated country in the world. I don't expect to see him in my backyard, l.

get ur facts right before making allegation. Dasuki did never went to chatam house to tell the international community on why the election needed to be shifted at the time. He was to deliver a lecture when he first made the statement. Infact he was the first person who hinted the shifting of the election.

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D greeatest mhan ever liveth! sai chanji

yes so much has changed- FOR WORSE