President Muhammadu Buhari, on Monday, revealed that Information Minister Lai Mohammed is one of those he pities the most as he described as ‘hell’, the experience he and his team went through in the last one year of his government in his bid to deliver the promised change.
The president made the revelation when he met the State House Correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, as part of the occasions to commemorate his one year in office.
“So really it was a nasty experience for us. It was also a nasty experience for some of the ministers who were never in government; for them to sit down day and night to work. I saw them, some of them literarily lost weight because they were sleeping less and eating less. Working on every kobo to be spent.
“One of the men I pitied is Lai Mohammed. Everyday, he is on TV, explaining our performance. Most of the permanent secretaries were sent out because it was time for some of them to go and for others, one thing or the other. Because we’re not part of those 16 years this is where we found ourselves and this is no joke.”
He said when he took over power from the immediate-past President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, the new government was faced with the challenge of managing the country within the present economic reality.
“This is the condition we found ourselves and this change mantra had to go through hell up till yesterday (Sunday, May 29). And for you to talk to whoever came to visit us throughout that year, I wonder how each of your diaries would be, because people were expecting this change mantra in their own way. How do you define change? Luckily, our party identified three major items; security, economy and corruption.”
Buhari expressed concern over the level of corruption perpetrated by the last government, saying “people were trusted and the most recent one which we haven’t recovered from is the $2.1billion dollars, which was given by the government then, to the military to buy hardware to fight the insurgents which had taken over part of the country and they just sat just the way you are sitting now and shared the money into their own accounts.”
“They didn’t even bother. So we are still trying to get the cooperation of the international community and so on and we have to do it with a lot of respect to the judiciary. We can’t go out and talk too much. We have to allow the judiciary to do their work. We give them the facts; the name, country, bank account. If you talk too much technicalities will come in, them we will realise less than what we want to realise.
“So please when next you want to interrogate our visitors, try and do some research so that when they are coming next time, they will do research themselves,” he said.
President Buhari, however, hailed Dr Jonathan for conceding defeat, saying “it was quiet generous and gracious of him.”
“This is where. I pay my respect to former President Goodluck Jonathan. This is actually a privileged information for you. He called me at a quarter past five in the evening. He said good evening your Excellency Sir and I said good evening your Excellency. He said, I have called to congratulate you that I have conceded defeat.
“Of course, there was dead silence on my end, because I did not expect it. I was shocked. I did not expect it because after 16 sixteen years, the man was a deputy governor, governor, Vice President and was President for six years. For him to have conceded defeat even before the result was announced by INEC, I think it was quiet generous and gracious of him.
“Abdulsalam recognised the generosity of Jonathan to concede deceit and said we should go and thank him immediately and that was the first time I came here,” he said.
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