The Presidency has criticized the recent resolutions of the southern governors, including the ban on open grazing in the  region.

Presidency, in a statement on Monday, by President Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, noted that the governors have failed to provide any solution to the lingering crisis between farmers and herders in the country.

According to Shehu, “It is very clear that there was no solution offered from their (the Governors’) resolutions to the herder-farmer clashes that have been continuing in our country for generations.

“But the citizens of the Southern States – indeed citizens of all States of Nigeria – have a right to expect their elected leaders and representatives to find answers to challenges of governance and rights, and not to wash their hands off hard choices by, instead, issuing bans that say: “not in my State”, he added.

State governors in the South, at a meeting held on May 11 in Asaba, the Delta State capital, had resolved to ban open grazing and movement of cattle by foot in the region following.

The state gaffers, had , also called for the restructuring of the country along with fiscal federalism, devolution of powers, and state policing, as well as asked President Muhammadu Buhari to convene a national dialogue to address the agitations by various groups in the region.

But, while reacting to the series of calls made by the governors, Buhari’s media aide, Shehu explained that the president has expressed a strong resolve to address the conflicts of herders and farmers in a sustained and lasting manner.

He expressed optimism that this would lead to the emergence of a permanent solution to the frequent clashes between both parties, as well as the associated problem of the gun-wielding killer herdsmen.

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The Senior Special Assistant to President Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, stated  this while featuring on Channels Television’s Politics Today.

President Buhari had earlier departed the Presidential Villa for the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja at about 2:30pm after which he proceeded to London for a routine medical check-up.

Speaking further, Garba argued that President Buhari has not contravened the laws of the land by not transmitting power to  Vice President Osinbajo while away from the country for a number of days.

According to him, “Buhari will continue from wherever he is,” Shehu argued when asked if the President had transferred duties to the vice president.

“The requirement of the law is that the President is going to be absent in the country for 21 days and more, then that transmission is warranted. In this particular instance, it is not warranted”, he continued.

The Presidency had also informed that the President was expected back in the country in the second week of April.

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Mrs Buhari had on Wednesday in a statement, accused Mr Garba Shehu, the President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity of shifting his loyalty from President Buhari, to those she labelled have no stake in governance.

She said Shehu  has gone beyond his boundaries and is “meddling in the affairs of a First Lady of a country.”

According to the PDP, the development showed that governance has failed in the president’s hands.

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP  further submitted  “that the governance of our nation has been ceded to the chaotic and selfish whims of a cabal.”

The party added that the “Buhari Presidency has continued to serve Nigerians and the international community with tragicomedies that make mockery of leadership.

“Nigerians can now further see why nothing works under the Buhari Presidency; why the administration has remained shambolic and plagued with policy summersaults and executive recklessness; why our economy has
remained comatose and why our nation has been dangerously drifting to the brinks under President Buhari’s watch.”

The Party decried that since the history of the country, the essence and symbol of Nigeria’s Presidency has never been so stripped and ridiculed.

“The PDP urges President Buhari to immediately put his house in order and
save our nation further embarrassments under his very incompetent disorderly and messy regime.”

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I have known the presidential media assistant for more than two decades now and I, as well as those who know him, know that his short fuse is akin to an epileptic fit. That he would translate this drawback into the management of his office was not a surprise. What is surprising is that mature minds in the presidency couldn’t rein in this personal limitation from becoming an official imprimatur that paints the hallowed office of the Vice President in the visor of a common motor park tout whenever this fit is in full blossom. Like in the rejoinder under reference.

Not only do I know Mr. Akande very well, on my part, I thought he was my friend and that he is aware that friendship shouldn’t stand in the way of making comments on issues that affect the country. Specifically, I knew Mr. Akande in 1995, about 24 years ago, at the Tribune House, Imalefalafia, Ibadan, Oyo State. Surprisingly, while Akande pretends never to have worked there, I still carry the glory of this frontline newspaper which made me what I am today.

Those who are in the know would tell you what Akande used the Saturday Tribune newspaper he edited then for, which he knows that I know. With what we all know, Akande is the least person to impute motives to what journalists write. It is on record that almost all the lead stories in the newspaper under his editor-ship were against the government of the day. Would it be right to say he collected money from the opposition then?

I hope Mr. Akande remembers that I was not just an insider in the Tribune then, we were sufficiently close for me to know what he did. The language he used for me in the said rejoinder did not in the least shock me, his friend – I assume! – of almost 24 years, given the fact of what I know about how Mr. Akande regards relationships. My friend, Akande, was a member of a 5-man circle of very closely-knit friends in the Tribune at that time. Can he explain why the other four were sacked in 1997 and he did not only survive the sack, he, like a supplanter, took over the post of one of his sacked friends? Or has he forgotten how he became the editor of the Saturday Tribune, a position he took from his sacked friend? Till today, Mr. Akande’s friends still lament the knife with which his Cassius stabbed their Julius Caesar. The quadruple facilitated his employment at the Tribune. This is basically why I am not bothered about his intemperate language. All of us, his friends, do not expect anything noble from Mr. Akande.

On March 17, 2018, celebrated and respected journalist, one of our immediate forefathers in the pen profession, Mr. Dele Momodu, wrote a very emotional piece about Mr. Akande. He entitled it An Open Letter to Laolu Akande. In that piece, Mr. Momodu traced the genealogy of his association with Akande. He began by wondering “what people eat or drink inside the Aso Rock Villa that makes some of those of (our) ilk, who we once admired, misbehave the way you (Akande) did last night.” Like me, Mr. Momodu had known him for more than two decades. He wrote about how, on meeting Akande in America where he was sojourning, he “expressed the difficulties and vagaries of life (he) faced in America,” how he made him North American Bureau Chief for Ovation International and how, at some point, the editor “complained about the way you handled transactions and so on” and how he “simply abandoned a company that provided some modest income for (him) in America.”

He had been publishing a ragtag online medium called Empowered Newswire which visiting Nigerian politicians to the US claimed he was using to extort money from them. Mr. Akande’s reply to a similar piece I did critiquing the VP authored by Momodu was, “For good measure, Bob Dee, maybe we should just remind our readers that not only are you an active member of opposition, you also retain with top notchers of the PDP significant business relationships.” It was a euphemism for alleging that the respected journalist was compromised.

I noticed that in the said rejoinder, Mr. Akande repeatedly referred to me as “Mr.” Being someone with visceral hatred for titles, I do not bother about whatever prefix anyone attaches to me but, in this instance, I noticed that this was done for spite purpose, even when Mr. Akande is aware that I hold a PhD – not honoris causa – from the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan, same school I am aware that Mr. Akande struggled unsuccessfully for close to two decades until he abandoned his doctoral pursuit. For his information, while he is stagnant intellectually, I have gone a step forward to acquire an LLB from that same University of Ibadan .

Now back to his claim of my manufacture of the information in the piece. While I owe him no apology whatsoever, explanation or any detail, I leave Nigerians to place us side by side and judge who is believable between us. Here was a presidential aide who, about a week ago, took about 200 million Nigerians for a ride, telling them that there was no sack of his principals’ aides by the President. A few hours after, a colleague aide of his at the presidency told the world that there were indeed sacks of the same people. Mum has been the word from the supplanter since then. In saner climes, it was enough reason to resign his portfolio. Shamelessly, he still appends his signature to releases. No remorse, no shame. Till today,

Mr. Akande is apparently one of those “government people” whose warped and narrow minds cannot conceive the possibility of anyone critiquing government personalities without having been compromised. He has failed to tell the world who could have compromised me to write an old information that was common knowledge on the Nigerian information highway. I am sure that those who were privy to the information must be laughing themselves hoarse at Mr. Akande’s unexampled attempt to make a corpse walk.

As a parting shot, the person I pity most is the VP who is trapped in the cocoon of this irascible element who has transposed his short fuse into the management of the press of the vice president. I recommend the examples of his colleagues – Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu – to him. When you critique their boss, not only do they take it in their strides, they do not smear the critic in swine lingo as Akande does. Today, Mr. Akande has scant regards among Nigerian media chiefs due to this limitation of his and how he cannot maintain friendships. No wonder the office has almost nil media rating. Many of the barbs the professor VP receives are ostensibly ones meant for his media chief who will descend into the gutters and splash sewers on whoever tells the world that his principal isn’t exactly a nephew of Angel Gabriel. No one is.

Dr Festus Adedayo, a seasoned journalist, columnist and media consultant; writes from Ibadan, Oyo state

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An aide in the presidency confirmed this development on Wednesday.

The source also disclosed that  the Governors Forum will be speaking on the matter soon.

The Ruga initiative has for some time been generating heated debates in various quarters with some arguing that it is a scheme by the government of the day to reposition the Fulani tribe.

But, the presidency has defended the controversial Ruga settlements programme, adding that the initiative is for the benefit of all.

In a statement released by the Senior Special Assistant to the President, Garba Shehu, the presidency punctured that the programme is not a scheme to reposition the Fulani people, adding that no state has been forced to partake of the initiative.

The presidency’s statement partially reads: “The Presidency wishes to draw attention to recent unhelpful comments regarding the plan to stop roaming of cattle herders with the attendant clashes with farmers.

“Ruga Settlement” that seeks to settle migrant pastoral families simply means rural settlement in which animal farmers, not just cattle herders, will be settled in an organized place with provision of necessary and adequate basic amenities such as schools, hospitals, road networks, vet clinics, markets and manufacturing entities that will process and add value to meats and animal products.

Beneficiaries will include all persons in animal husbandry, not only Fulani herders.”

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According to a  statement issued  by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, quoted a circular issued by Boss Mustapha, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), that the reports should be submitted to the Presidential Audit Committee in the office of the Vice President.

The circular also requested that members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to; “ensure that all outstanding memoranda they intend to present to the Federal Executive Council are submitted to the Cabinet Affairs Office, Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, not later than Tuesday, 30th April, 2019.”

The circular further pointed out that the 9th and 10th meetings of the council have been rescheduled to Thursday, April 25 and Thursday, May 2, 2019, respectively” in view of the Easter break and May Day.

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He said some desperate politicians were hell bent on rubbishing the Muhammadu Buhari administration.

Shehu in an interview with Channels Television insisted that the report was undounded.

“From our own point of view, we think that the Presidency is coming under attack for the fact that we are approaching an election.

“We have not suffered any major financial scandal and so the opposition is desperate to stick something on the administration. That’s the way we are looking at it,” he said.

Although the Presidency had issued a statement in a swift reaction to the allegation, Mr Shehu said the report was nothing but a fiction.

His comment, however, drew a slew of mixed reactions from Nigerians, who bashing him for defending the accused.

The presidential aide wondered why such report was published at a time when the general elections were a few months away.

“This is an administration that has stopped so much wrongdoing. In this country,” Shehu said.

“There are huge numbers of citizens who have fed fat on the system without doing just anything to justify their drawing enormous benefit from the nation’s treasury.

“The President has stopped all of that and the thing that is happening is that people who are being deprived, who have this sense of entitlement that the treasury is their birthright, are just looking for people to hunt and to shoot down,” he added.

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