Presidency lists those behind Benue, Plateau killings

Malam Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, has attributed insecurity and killings in the country to corrupt politicians.

He said that the politicians involved were those who no longer had access to  loot public treasury.

Shehu, who stated this on Monday in Abuja while speaking with newsmen, said that such politicians were bent on taking the shine out of the Buhari-led administration.

“The competition for power has become fiercer because the stakes are very high,” he said.

According to Shehu, Buhari is being attacked especially because he has unleashed on the country, a war against corruption.

This, he said, had never been so in the country as access to public treasury for looting had been blocked to some persons.

The aide, however, said that the president was lucky because he had a judiciary which was transforming itself and was on the same page with him in fighting corruption.

“As I speak to you now, two former state governors are in jail; a lot of people thought that this war against corruption is a joke and that the back-and-forth that had characterised this over time, will continue.

“One of the two cases was determined after 11 years of back-and-forth between lawyers and Judges, kicking the ball from this court to that court.

“A lot of these harsh attacks against the president are coming from people who had become used to life style they cannot sustain.

“On record, there were people in this country, because they are influential, they had permanent suite in major hotels in Abuja where they leave lavishly at public expense.

“And, when they are leaving, they are accompanied with bags of Ghana-Must-Go,” he said.

Shehu added that the president had blocked access to national resources for lazy people, politicians, especially those who were fighting back, because they were not happy.

He said that the Buhari-led Federal Government was building infrastructure across the country.

According to him, there is no state in the country where a minimum of two federal roads are not being newly constructed or reconstructed.

“We have more electricity that cannot be consumed, 2,000 megawatts of electricity that nobody is taking.

“By the year ending, we are going to hit 10,000 megawatts from the 2,600 that we inherited,” he said, adding that government’s problem was how to sell and distribute electricity to those who needed it.

The president’s aide noted that those criticising Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) would not give up as 2019 elections drew closer.

“They will continue to fight the president, but the happiness we have is that ordinary low-level Nigerians understand the huge conspiracy.

“Nigerians are with the president, the elite are going to places – America and the United Kingdom – and they are clicking in posh homes in Abuja, Lagos and some major cities in the country.

“They are trying to thwart the goodwill of the president towards the people.

“But, this economy is being re-built; more foreign investment is coming, more infrastructure is being given to Nigerians and even the security infrastructure which had suffered neglect over the years is being given priority,” he said.

Shehu added that if those attacking the president had done what they ought to have done by equipping and training the military, things would have been different.

He maintained that no government in the past was doing as much for the military and the police as the current administration.

He said the Federal Government was putting in place infrastructure in the prisons and the EFCC that people may think that it was lavishing much money on the institutions.

Shehu also said that the government was putting in place world-class infrastructure for Nigerians, and the government understood that its detractors wanted to take away attention from it.

He reaffirmed that the government would continue to stay on the message and on course, no matter the distraction.

He expressed optimism that the APC would not only win the presidency in 2019, but would win more states, especially in the South-East.