By Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku
Abuja, Nigeria – Femi Adesina, Senior Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on media, on Wednesday at the NUJ Press center in Abuja said that most Nigerians are generally unfair in their assessment of the performance of his principal in the past seven years of his administration.
Adesina made the statement at a press briefing organized by a group, Vanguard for Transparent Leadership and Democracy (VATLAD) to proffer solutions to lingering problems in Nigeria.
Reacting to a question posed by Alltimepost.com Abuja Special Correspondent, Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku about Buhari’s failure in handling the fuel shortage, and why nobody in his administration has been sanctioned as a deterrent, Mr. Adesina said that the fuel shortage was just a ‘snafu.’
“For over the six years that President Buhari has been president and minister of Petroleum, the fuel queues that were a recurrent decimal mostly during festivities in Nigeria vanished.
“Unfortunately though, most of the criticisms against the president over the fuel shortage have been colored and tainted by political considerations,” Mr Adesina said.
Mr Adesina said that even though the security situation in Nigeria is dire, the government of President Buhari has risen to the challenge.
Earlier in a speech, convener of the VATLAD press briefing Comrade Igbini Odafe who is national president of VATLAD, said that the press briefing was organized because his organization is seeking solutions to the many problems in Nigeria.
“That all is not well with Nigeria is a fact that cannot be questioned. But to blame all of it on one man is unreasonable especially since we have three sides to the governance apparatus in Nigeria.
“Therefore because we know that the National Assembly does not have the power to pressure the president to assent to the electoral bill, we have sent him a memo not to listen to the agitations being made to pressure the President to sign the bill into law,” Engineer Odafe said at the press meeting.
Engineer Odafe, three-time governorship aspirant in Delta State said that his organization VATLADF had been in existence for 21 years “was not like all the others.”
But not everyone at the press briefing shared the optimism from Mr. Adesina and Engineer Odafe. One of such persons who said he believed that President Buhari ‘has walked out of purpose’, was Kinsley Chinda, representing Akpor Federal Constituency from Rivers state, and leader of the PDP Caucus of the House of Representatives.
According to Rep Chinda, Nigeria has so many problems today because there are hypocritical leaders and sycophantic followers.
“I can bet you that the reason why President Buhari will not sign the Electoral bill into law is that if he does, APC will lose woefully at the coming elections in 2023.
“He knows that the house cannot muster 1/3 of members to veto his decision not to sign the electoral bill into law,” Hon Chinda said.
Rep Chinda said it was time for Nigerians to ask President Buhari to resign, and for Nigerians to hold their elected leaders to account.
