Buhari needs more time to stabilise, says Tinubu

Urges President’s interference in N’Assembly matters

FORMER Governor of Lagos State and national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has urged Nigerians to give the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration more time to settle down for real governance.

Tinubu, who spoke to State House correspondents after meeting with Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, also downplayed the party’s leadership crisis in the National Assembly (NASS), saying it was a democratic process.

While he shared the President’s principle of non-interference in the affairs of other arms of government, he believed the President needed to occasionally wade in to restore sanity in the legislative arm in view of the protracted conflict there.

However, he considered suggestions that Buhari’s government was slow as an unfair cut, stating that the level of rot the administration inherited made it necessary to carefully analyse the situation before delving into real governance issues.

He argued that governance required careful and deft planning to achieve the desired success, adding that the perceived lull in the new administration was a “honeymoon period,” which even international norms recognised.

According to him, successive governments had run into avoidable crisis on account of poor planning, as there must be time to plan, review and even listen to the people. Therefore, “let us be calm now. May 29 was when this President was sworn in.

“It is an international norm, all over the world there is an honeymoon period, a minimum of 100 days. And you won’t allow honeymoon at all? You said change is not coming. Change is not by magic, it is driven by the people, their spirit, character and planning.

“We have had so much problem in this country in the past, because we run into policy without adequate and effective planning. You don’t have results unless you plan well.

“The time it takes you to plan, examine, rejig, re-evaluate is more important than the time you just rush into taking actions, because you are either being sentimental, emotional or driven by other forces that are not expected. It’s not fair to jump into those conclusions.”

According to Tinubu, “there is separation between a campaign period, when you articulate your vision, and express the promises. There is a time to look at holistically what you inherited, analyse it, distill and then take action.

“Even in a 100 metres race, there is a time to say on your marks, set, ready, go. So you don’t even want a time to be on your marks, set and go? No, no, no! You are not being fair.”

Tinubu also disagreed with media reports that Buhari’s meeting with the House of Representatives’ APC caucus on Monday was deadlocked.

Though he admitted that he had not read any commentary on the issue, yet he said that the outcome was far from being deadlocked. More so, he commended Buhari’s intervention in the protracted crisis as the right thing to do.

“When the National Assembly starts the job of lawmaking in earnest, the President needs to step in once in a while, as he did, to let people understand the import of the expectations of the public, particularly of the international community, on various programmes and institutions,” he added.