Former President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesman, Garba Shehu has said unfair criticism has continued to trail his principal’s eight-year rule despite the positive changes recorded.
Shehu said this in an article titled, “One Hundred Days After Buhari”.
“In the eight years he led the country, Muhammadu Buhari had taken many decisions and as is human, one or two may have been wrong. But no one, not even critics, can question his intentions when those decisions were taken.
“There has not been a single area that has not been touched by the Buhari government, with massive, positive changes in the eight years he held fort.
“In the normative functions of our governments, an administration takes four to five major decisions in four years and they rush to the public square to celebrate themselves.
“Looking at the records he left, the Buhari government has taken hundreds of major decisions in the eight years it was in office, and yet you hear nothing but criticism upon criticism,” he lamented.
He said that Buhari’s campaign promise to fight corruption were fulfilled.
“On coming to office, the administration directed all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to close their accounts with deposit money banks to fully operationalize the Treasury Single Account. TSA was launched in 2012 but left on the drawing boards. More than 17,000 bank accounts were closed and an average of four billion Naira in monthly bank charges was saved. Government revenue, it was found out, was being banked in personal accounts and signatories were, in some instances, big men and women who had retired from service.
“This was closely followed with the institution of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll System, IPPS to cover all MDAs in spite of great opposition by the armed forces and the universities. Ghost workers in excess of 50,000 were flushed out and savings in hundreds of billions made.
“The last administration established “project lighthouse,” a financial data integration engine that helped to identify unpaid debts put at more than five trillion Naira, out of which a good part has been recovered. It subscribed to the Open Government Partnership, OGP in 2016, instituted the Whistleblower mechanism which has been legislated into law, fast-tracked Identity Management taking registered entries to well above 100 million from just about 20-25 in 2015, boosted assets recovery at home and abroad with enhanced laws that ensured transparency in the management of the funds and generally increased the latitude of power and authority of anti corruption agencies and the office of the Auditor General of the Federation.
“Throughout these eight years, no bribery allegations against the person of Muhammadu Buhari were ever made,” he said.
Shehu added that Buhari’s government also diversified the economy, fought poverty, combated COVID-19, tackled insecurity, improved health infrastructure, revamped education, and introduced anti-open defecation policy.
“No one should be angry at some revisionist characters whose only focus is the delegitimisation of significant Buhari legacies,” he said.