Buhari’s Govt Thrives On Destroying Peoples’ Reputation – Fani-Kayode

Former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, has claimed that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari allegedly “thrives on destroying the reputation” of those who oppose it.

Fani-Kayode said this when asked on Channels TV’s ‘Politics Today’ to comment on President Buhari’s query on how $16 billion was allegedly mismanaged under former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s watch as president.

The former minister described President Buhari’s claim as “wild allegations” that “simply make no sense at all”.

Fani-Kayode said, “this government thrives on destroying the reputation and name of other people…that’s what they do; they sit back and do nothing.”

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain described as “absolute hogwash” the claim by the current government that it now generates 7,000 megawatts per day.

Referring to President Buhari, Fani-Kayode said “this man thrives on propaganda and lies. We all know that that’s all they do and I would urge them strongly to accept and understand one thing… they will not be in power forever.”

The former minister further said he is amused and “baffled that our president seems not to be too conversant with facts and the figures and he’s simply mouthing off what he said himself in 2011 which was proved to be untrue then and which indeed was proved to be untrue after the late President Yar’Adua himself came up with that figure.

“The fact of the matter is this, there was never an allegation or there was never a claim by President Obasanjo that $16 billion was spent on power neither did he ever boast about that neither was there ever that amount of money spent on power when Obasanjo was in power and that’s the simple truth.

“This narrative, if I may start there. this narrative that President Buhari keeps putting out that everybody in this country is some kind of demon, some kind of corrupt monster, apart from himself is something that we need to kill here tonight and today and we need to put a stop to it.

“If it’s not about Obasanjo that is now you know you should be asking questions about $16 billion on power simply because he could criticised your government and said you shouldn’t come back, then it’s General TY Danjuma who said there was ethnic cleansing in the country and then you asked your people to stop him at the airport and stop him from traveling out of the country and delay him there for about seven hours.

“If it’s not that, it’s Atiku, if it’s not that, it’s not the opposition figures in the country, if it’s not that, it’s the Nigerian people generally. You go to Britain and you know the Prime Minister of Britain says Nigerians are all fantastically corrupt and you clap for her so this is his narrative and it’s simply unfortunate and it’s simply not true.

“The facts are simple and clear and we’ve argued this over and over again, various committees have probed it, the EFCC has probed it and the facts are simple and clear and if I may go through the facts here and now….the facts of the matter is that $6.4 million or thereabouts was appropriated by the National Assembly for expenditure over a period eight years on power by President Obasanjo.

“Of that 6.4 billion only, 3.2 billion was cash back. In other words, throughout his eight years he spent $3.2 billion on power in Nigeria and you need to look at what he used that money for because we’re talking about where is the power. Let’s look at that when he came into power in 1999 when he was elected we were running 1000 megawatts per day in this country and that was the lowest in Africa.

“By the time he left office eight years later in 2007, he was hitting 4.5 five megawatts per day, which was an increase quadruple 400% increase in what he met there and that was pretty good. In fact it was very very good and we’re very proud of that especially when you consider the fact that his successor in office president Yar’Adua came and messed the whole thing up. He went back to 2.5 megawatts per day and never went above that throughout his tenure.

“President Jonathan came in and raised it to three point five megawatts and built it up from there to around four and since that time we’ve been fluctuating between 4.0 and 4.5 and now it’s gone down again. So Obasanjo, eleven years ago managed to achieve an optimum in power transmission which up till today has really not been matched, so when you ask where is the power, you should also ask where is Obasanjo and why he’s not the one running the country to ensure that we have the kind of power that we had as far back as 2009,” he said.