By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan.
The Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina on Friday asked Nigerian to cooperate with the administration of President Mohammadu Buhari and stop displaying unnecessary antagonism, malice and hatred for his administration.
Speaking at the Broadcasting Corporation of Oyo State TV “AM 120” program monitored by the New Nigerian, Mr Adesina declared that antagonism, malice and hatred is not the best option to move Nigeria forward.
According to the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, there is the need for Nigerians to continue to cooperate with the present government rather than to continue to criticize the President.
“Antagonism, hatred and malice is not an option for Nigerians to keep government on its toes, but goodwill, patience and cooperation with the government is the best option. What the people need is to cooperate with the government” he said.
Mr Adesina pointed out that “Nigeria over the decades turned itself into a mono economy” saying, “look at the country that is earning 3.5 billion dollars, but now it has reduce to about 190, what is happening in Venezuela is very hard, we don’t pray such thing will happen in Nigeria, things are gradually changing”.
He maintained that the problems facing Nigeria as a country did not come overnight but gradually and will fade gradually, saying, “the problem of Nigeria is a cumulative problem, all the refineries are down, but now the three refineries are working, so the problems does not start today, what Nigerians need to do is to encourage the government”.
On the backlog of salaries owed workers by some states in the country, the Special Adviser to President Buhari on Media and Publicity declared that what the federal government can only “do is to bail the state out but cannot intervene on the payment”.
“In a federalism, the only thing the federal government can do is to bail the states out, but the federal government cannot go to those states and pay the workers, the federal workers are being paid, the government has said that no worker should loose his job because they are not the ones that led us to the economic crises”.
He added “the problem is human problem, when the Israelites were passing through hardship, they cried but they later forgot when those problems passed away, so it is a human problem”.
Speaking further, Mr Adesina pleaded with the Nigerian people to support the anti corruption war of President Buhari, so that it will manifest as expected, saying, “unless the whole populace own the anti corruption war, it will be a Buhari thing. There is heavy corruption in Nigeria, when they asked the president he said it was true, he always speak his mind”.
On the Chibok girls, Mr Adesina disclosed that “there is still hope that the remaining girls will soon be rescued”, adding, “if you want to be honest with Nigerian government you will know that the level is not the same as it was in the past. What is going on is mopping up process”.
“A president should always engage his citizens, we will talk with him for another presidential media chart. What Nigerians need to do is to understand, is that they cannot hand over a template on how they want to relate with the president, the president has the right to handover the template on how he want to relate with them. If they have issue, let them speak up. Well, you know that there are certain things that is up limit like the age of the president, I don’t talk about his family. Presidential media chart is just one of the many ways the president can speak with Nigerians. My message is that Nigerians have a leadership they can trust, a leadership that is people focus, people need to give him time, at the end of this administration people will be happy that they voted for him. If you go to the market, I know how much things are going”.
