ABUJA–Presidency yesterday stated
that President Mohammdu Buhari
during his campaign never made
specific promises of what to achieve
within his first 100 days in office.
It also denied circulating documents
which contained such promises,
saying that two booklets titled “One
Hundred Things Buhari Will Do in
100 Days” and “My Covenant With
Nigerians” which allegedly made
rounds were not products of the
Media Department of the All
Progressives Congress, APC.
The Presidency’s position followed
public concerns of apparent denial of
such promises and existence of the
documents during the campaign by
appropriate authorities.
The Senior Special Assistant to the
president on media and publicity,
Mallam Garba Shehu who incidentally
was the Director, Media and Publicity
Department of the APC presidential
campaign organisation made the
disclosure in Abuja on Tuesday.
Shehu who urged Nigerians to ignore
the claims from certain quarters
submitted that he never signed any
such documents where the president
as a candidate made achievable
promises within 100 days in office.
He further backed up his claim by
recalling the lecture of given by the
president at the Chattam House in
London.
According to him, it was more timely
to talk about milestones since the
advent of the new government than
speaking about achievements.
“The president never promised
anything to anyone. It is on record in
that lecture at Chatham House they
asked him a question relating to
expectations and what he specifically
would do in relation to certain
documents that were flying around
committing him to this thing or that
thing within 100 days.
“In that lecture- the video is already
now viral on the web- he (Buhari)
said ‘it contained falsehood and I am
not going to be engaged in deceit. I
will go in there, I will see what is
there and the get the intelligence –
the knowledge of things that are
going on- and I will fully commit
myself to serving Nigeria'”.
“My point is that as the director,
media and communications of that
campaign, I was responsible for
internal and external communications
and these so p-called documents that
are been flown around didn’t have my
signature.
“I didn’t fund them and I didn’t
authorize them. From what President
Buhari himself had said at Chatham
House, he had no iota or knowledge
of those documents. So, people
cannot hold him to account on
something to which he did not
commit himself”.
“We prefer to talk about milestones
instead of achievements. Whether
the milestones represent
achievements or not, that is left for
the people to decide. Milestones
have been achieved which is
important for the country”, he stated.
Reminded that the documents had
gone viral on social media platforms
including APC’s website, the
presidential spokesperson said the
party had many centres of
communication, some of which were
on the loose.
He said, “APC had a campaign in
which there were so many centres of
public communication and
unfortunately there were some among
those centres that were more or less
on the loose. Yes, it was possible
that things were being done without
the knowledge or the usage of the
proper channel of communication.”
Shehu also recalled that the
president discarded the idea of 100
days at the Chatham house.
Quoting from President Buhari’s
transcript, Shehu said: “The second
one: high expectations and what to
do with the first 100 days. Yes, I
respect that question because quietly
I was thinking about these high
expectations. Those who are
following the trail of our campaigns
can see how people are turning out,
some becoming emotional and
crying.
“I am really getting scared that if I
get there they will expect miracles
within the next week or months. That
would be very dicey handling that
one. I think we have to have a
deliberate campaign to temper high
expectations with some
reasonableness on the part of those
who are expecting miracles to
happen.
“Just to go first to the ‘first 100
days’, some of it is fraudulent and I
don’t want to participate in any fraud
in any form. Nigerians know that we
are in trouble as a people and as a
country.” When we get there we will
quickly get correct intelligence of
what is on the ground and inform
Nigerians and just learn what I have
just read.
“We will make sure that the
misappropriation and misapplication
of public resources will not be
allowed. You would be surprised by
how much savings we will realize.
That saving will be ploughed back
into development and this is what I
can promise. But I would remove that
‘100 days’”.
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