Don’t misinform Nigerians, Presidency warns CDD

The Presidency yesterday advised leaders of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) to rise above petty partisanship and stop misleading Nigerians “with blatantly false propaganda and misinformation to serve ulterior motives.”
The Presidency’s caution was in response to an article entitled “Seven Months After, President’s Change Agenda Scorecard” by Idayat Hassan.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in a statement, said it was “very mischievous” to attribute to the President promises he didn’t make during the campaign, and now hold him accountable for them.

According to Shehu, any honest advocacy for democracy should not include distortion of facts and a misrepresentation of what President Muhammadu Buhari had promised to deal with during the campaigns.

He explained that “it is misleading to invent issues to suit one’s political bias and prejudice, and blame the President for not attending to those issues within one’s mischievous and chimerical deadline in order to play down the significant aspects of what the President has accomplished within those seven tough months.”

To Shehu, the CDD leaders could not objectively serve the cause of democracy if they were primarily preoccupied with negativity and cynicism, “constantly looking for something to condemn rather than appreciating the areas of progress made by the President within those seven months.”

He further noted that anybody or any group that focuses on negativity at the sexpense of objectivity would never see any good in the appreciable and significant progress made by the President.

According to him, within seven months, Buhari has successfully blocked the leakages for corruption, “as a result of these efforts, the Nigerian Customs Service has quadrupled its revenue base to incredible level within seven months, something they didn’t achieve in years. Doesn’t the President deserve credit for this and other efforts to confront the monster of corruption?”

On the economy, Shehu said it is wrong to blame Buhari for the falling oil prices in the world market a challenge, which has made the President lay greater emphasis and priority on economic diversification.

Shehu explained that Buhari’s experience is a double whammy because he inherited an economy in crisis on account of declining oil revenues and an economy also ravaged by incredible and large-scale corruption.