The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, has carpeted those who are faulting President Muhammadu Buhari for not changing his cabinet since 2015.
Shehu stated this in an interview with newsmen on Sunday.
He said it was not a weakness on the part of the President for retaining the same set of people as his ministers since assumption of office.
He said: “The President is the one who wears the shoes.
“He knows where it pinches.
“If the President hasn’t sacked his ministers, it means that he wants to continue to work with them.
“Maybe those agitating for the sack of the ministers are also looking for a chance to come in to replace those who are there.
“In that case, then they are driven by selfish motive.
“As President and Commander-in-Chief, he reserves the right to hire and fire.
“The fact that he hasn’t done that does not mean that he does not have the power to do that.
“I am sure if he wants do it, he will do it at his own pace and time, but people who want to become ministers, how many minister can we even appoint in this country?
“I think people should just be busy.
“Let them go and start farming instead of sitting down to speculate whether they can be made minister or not.”
On infrastructural development, Shehu said of Buhari’s Administration: “From day one when he took power, the President gave a target of not less than 30 per cent of annual appropriation devoted to infrastructure development.
“Without infrastructure we cannot lay the foundation for growth.
“When this administration came to power, between 95 and 96 per cent of public expenditure was going into overhead cost, leaving only about five or six per cent for infrastructure.
“The allocation of 30 per cent under this administration has led to tremendous improvement in the provision of infrastructure so far in the country.
“Now there is a lot of work going on: building new rail lines and the rehabilitation of the old rail system networks.
“Roads are being done all across the country.
“You only need to drive around to see for yourself.
“The amount of work this administration has done on roads, like the expressway from Enugu to Port Harcourt, has not been done in the eight years of previous administrations.
“We are hoping that within this year before the next election, Lagos-Ibadan will be completed.
“It’s a lot of money.
“We are doing it.
“Government is laying the sod now for the construction of a six lane road from Abuja to Kano.
“So there is so much that is going on in terms of that.
“We are doing power.
“You know that this administration has doubled availability of power in the country.
“When we came in, it stood at about 3,000 megawatts.
“We have hit 7,000 megawatts and we are doing more.
“So it depends on what you are looking at.
“This is a government that has spent N1.3 trillion in capital expenses under 2016 budget and has also spent as much as that under the 2017 budget and it’s almost closing on records for last year which was N1.3 trillion.” (Theeagleonline.com.ng)
