President Muhammadu Buhari has no moral right to seek a second term in office, former president, Goodluck Jonathan, has said.
Mr Jonathan stated this in reactions to blames heaped on him as the cause of the failures of the Buhari administration.
The former president lost re-election to the incumbent President in the 2015 presidential election.
Since he left office, Jonathan, his administration and his party – Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has severally been blamed for the woes encountered by the current administration.
The latest blame thrown to the former president is the insinuation from Garba Shehu, the spokesman of Buhari, that Jonathan was responsible for his principal’s inability to form a cabinet, six months after assuming power.
Buhari had spent six months scrutinizing those he want as ministers. At the time, he had said the need to restructure the Federal Government ministries and to effect his party’s mantra of change in government processes and operations accounted for his delay in appointing ministers.
But Shehu added a new twist to it on Monday when he featured in a Sunrise Daily programme on Channels Television.
Frank Shuaibu, special adviser on public communications to Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the PDP who also featured on the programme, had listed Buhari’s delay in appointing his cabinet as one of the factors that plunged the economy into a recession.
“The claims made by my dear friend here that President Muhammadu Buhari spent 166 days without forming a cabinet, that absolutely is untrue,” Shehu said while in defence of his principal.
“It took him time to form a cabinet because the outgoing administration in 2015 did not cooperate with the transition committee,” he added.
Responding in a statement issued on his behalf by Ikechukwu Eze, his spokesman, Jonathan wondered why a government seeking reelection would be looking for a scapegoat.
The former president who absolved himself of any blame said Buhari ought not to seek re-election because he has failed in piloting the affairs of the country.
“As strange as that particular assertion may sound, it still beggars belief that a spokesman of a President who is seeking re-election would still be looking for a scapegoat for the administration’s failure, at a time he should be showcasing his scorecard. That amounts to merely clutching at straws,” Mr Eze said.
“One thing is as clear as daylight: The Jonathan administration has absolutely nothing to do with the failure of this government to appoint ministers early enough to inspire confidence in investors because it is obvious that handover notes from a predecessor does not contain the list of ministers for the incoming administration.
“However, that is even making light of Garba Shehu’s unending embarrassing gaffe. It is expected that a man who has been around the corridors of power for that long, beginning from when he served as a media adviser under President Obasanjo for years, should understand Government’s basic functions and procedures. Handover notes, being transitioning documents, are usually received by an incoming President from his predecessor at the time of change of government.
“It is not a document that guides a President to appoint his ministers. Under normal circumstances, a newly inaugurated President needs the support of his ministers, who would handle different departments of Government, to study and understand his handover notes for effective performance of his initial duties.
“Those who think like Shehu that a Government would not function properly if it does not receive handover notes in time, should be reminded that there is no law establishing the process. It is simply a matter of convenience for an outgoing President to develop handover notes to guide his successor understand key issues and hit the ground running.
“In his own case, former president Jonathan magnanimously set up a transition team that produced the handover document which President Buhari received ahead of his inauguration.
“Anyone who uses handover notes to justify a President’s indiscretion of not appointing ministers until after spending six months in power, is either being mischievous or does not really understand governance processes.
“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 prove 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,” the statement partly read. Source: https://politicstimesng.com/jonathan-buhari-no-moral-right-seek-re-election/ |
