Ministerial Appointments: ”I Am Not Responsible For Your Failure” – Jonathan Replies Buhari

Ministerial Appointments: ”I Am Not Responsible For Your Failure” – Jonathan Replies Buhari

Former President Goodluck Jonathan, has reacted to claims made by the
presidency that he was responsible for the delay in the appointment of
Ministers by President Buhari in 2015. 

On Monday, Senior Special Assistant to President Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said President Buhari took six months in appointing his Ministers because the former president did not give him handover notes.

Reacting to this claim, the former President through his media
adviser, Ikechukwu Eze, asked President Buhari to take responsibility
for his failures as he is not in any way responsible for his
ineffectiveness. In a statement released by Eze, Jonathan berated the
presidency for always attempting to paint his administration in bad
light. He noted that the Buhari-led administration was elected to come
in to make progressive changes and not remind Nigerians of his
administration.

Read the Full text of ex-president Jonathan’s reply

Garba Shehu’s gaffe on Jonathan’s Handover notes to Buhari Our
attention has been drawn to a statement by the Senior Special Assistant
to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu in which he
blamed the failure of President Muhammadu Buhari to appoint ministers
until six months after taking over office on the administration of
former President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

Speaking on a Channels television programme on Monday December 17,
Shehu had claimed that it took President buhari who was sworn in on May
29, 2015 until November 11, 2015 to appoint his ministers because the
“President was given handover notes 48 hours to the handover of power”.

As strange as that particular assertion may sound, it still beggars
belief that a spokesman of a President who is seeking re-election would
still be looking for a scapegoat for the administration’s failure, at a
time he should be showcasing his scorecard. That amounts to merely
clutching at straws. One thing is as clear as daylight: The Jonathan
administration has absolutely nothing to do with the failure of this
government to appoint ministers early enough to inspire confidence in
investors because it is obvious that handover notes from a predecessor
does not contain the list of ministers for the incoming administration.

However, that is even making light of Garba Shehu’s unending
embarrassing gaffe. It is expected that a man who has been around the
corridors of power for that long, beginning from when he served as a
media adviser under President Obasanjo for years, should understand
Government’s basic functions and procedures. Handover notes, being
transitioning documents, are usually received by an incoming President
from his predecessor at the time of change of government. It is not a
document that guides a President to appoint his ministers.

Under normal circumstances, a newly inaugurated President needs the
support of his ministers, who would handle different departments of
Government, to study and understand his handover notes for effective
performance of his initial duties. Those who think like Shehu that a
Government would not function properly if it does not receive handover
notes in time, should be reminded that there is no law establishing the
process. It is simply a matter of convenience for an outgoing President
to develop handover notes to guide his successor understand key issues
and hit the ground running.

In his own case, former president Jonathan magnanimously set up a
transition team that produced the handover document which President
Buhari received ahead of his inauguration. Anyone who uses handover
notes to justify a President’s indiscretion of not appointing ministers
until after spending six months in power, is either being mischievous or
does not really understand governance processes. Father Mbaka : The
priest in the eye of the storm Sometimes, when Mr. Shehu speaks, he
comes across as someone who is unaware of the fact that, under our laws,
an administration is elected for a tenure of four years within which it
is expected to have fulfilled its campaign promises, before returning
to the electorates for a fresh mandate.

In case he does not know, Shehu should be reminded that blaming
others for one’s failures is not a prove of performance. Assuming,
without out conceding, that the last administration was as bad as they
want Nigerians to believe, is it not a fact of governance that it is the
duty of every responsible administration to seek to make better the
situation it met on ground? Anything less than that is a prove of
incompetence for which a failed administration has no moral
justification to ask for a fresh mandate. While members of the current
administration continue to blame President Jonathan for their failure to
deliver on their mandate, they should be reminded that there are many
African success stories that proved that a progress-minded
administration has no business focusing only on the past.

From a past of the worst genocide in recent history, Rwandan
President Paul Kagame did not blame anybody when he took charge. He
simply hit the ground running, and today, we all know where Rwanda
stands in Africa’s growth and development index. The story is similar in
Cote d’Ivoire where President Alassane Ouattara was able to turn around
the Ivorian economy within two years after it had virtually collapsed
following the negative impact of the country’s worst political crisis.

As the Buhari Government nears its end, the minders of the
administration should please tell Nigerians what new projects,
programmes and institutions for good governance they have added to those
established by the various administrations of the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP), since they took office on May 29, 2015. The truth is that
this unhelpful blame game must stop if we have to move forward as a
nation.