Buhari Won’t Fight Sanusi For Criticising FG – Presidenc

The Presidency on Thursday said President
Muhammadu Buhari would not fight the Emir of
Kano, Alhaji Mohammadu Sanusi, over his
Wednesday’s criticism of the present
administration.
Sanusi had said the Buhari-led administration
might end up like the immediate past President
Goodluck Jonathan’s administration if it failed to
retrace its steps on some policies.
The traditional ruler, who was the chairman of
the 15th meeting of the Joint Planning Board
and National Council on Development Planning in
Kano State, had argued that the failure of the
Buhari-led government to create employment
opportunities for “the over 80 million youths in
the country,” made terrorism attractive to the
unemployed.
But in an interview with our correspondent on
Thursday, the Senior Special Assistant to the
President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu,
said criticism such as the one made by the first-
class traditional ruler was healthy for democracy.
Rather than fighting the Emir, Shehu said
Buhari’s government would listen and act on the
criticism.
The presidential spokesman said, “This
government will not fight people for criticising
the present administration led by President
Buhari. This kind of criticism is healthy for our
democracy. One cannot get better without being
criticised. I can assure you that this government
is listening.”
Meanwhile, Buhari on Thursday met behind
closed doors with the Governor of the Central
Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, in what
was believed to be a fallout of Sanusi’s criticism
of Buhari.
A Presidency source told our correspondent that
the CBN would respond appropriately to Sanusi’s
comment.
He said the CBN boss could have used the
opportunity of the meeting with the President to
get approval to reply Sanusi.
The monarch, who titled his speech, “Nigeria in
search of new growth model,” had said some
policies of the government were bad for the
economy, adding that Buhari must retrace his
steps.
He noted that there were times when the Federal
Government tried to get it right, adding that it
failed to follow up, which contributed to the
ongoing economic downturn.
He said, ‘‘I will neither change nor be political by
telling people what they want to hear. The truth
is that there is nothing we are facing today that
we did not know would happen. We made
mistakes, many of them deliberate; we ignored
every single warning.
“If you take a brand-new car and hand it over to
a driver who doesn’t have a licence to drive it
and you are involved in an accident, you can’t
say you are surprised, unless you are some kind
of an idiot.
“We should not just keep blaming the previous
administration; we also made some mistakes in
the current administration.
“They must retrace their steps. They have to
retrace those steps all the way. We should not
fall into the same trap we fell the last time when
the government was always right. The bottom
line is that if your policy is wrong, it means you
must change it and nothing will make it right as
it has to be changed.
“If this government continues to behave the way
the last government behaved, it will end up
where Jonathan ended.”