Buhari never made 100-day promises, Presidency insists

Firstclass newsline gathered that the Presidency insisted on Tuesday
that President Muhammadu Buhari did not promise Nigerians that he
would achieve specific things within his first 100 days in office.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity,
Mr. Garba Shehu, stated this while responding to questions about
reports on documents titled, "One Hundred Things Buhari Will Do in 100
Days" and "My Covenant with Nigerians."
Shehu said the documents did not emanate from the official channel of
Buhari's campaign media department.
Some citizens had berated the Presidency and the All Progressives
Congress for denying that specific promises were made during
electioneering as to envisaged achievements in the first 100 days in
office.
Shehu urged Nigerians to ignore the claims that Buhari specifically
made promises of achievements within his 100 days in office.
Shehu said he neither authorised nor signed such a document in his
capacity as the Director, Media and Communications of the Buhari
Campaign Organisation.
He said the Presidency rather be talking about milestones reached
since Buhari assumed office.
He said, "We prefer to talk about milestones instead of achievements;
whether the milestones represent achievements or not, that is left for
the people to decide. Milestones have been achieved, which is
important for the country."
Explaining what Buhari said during a lecture at the Chatham House in
London, the presidential spokesman said, "The President never promised
anything to anyone. It is on record in that lecture at Chatham House;
they asked him a question relating to expectations and what he
specifically would do in relation to certain documents that were
flying around, committing him to this thing or that thing within 100
days."
He said Buhari disowned the documents, saying they contained falsehood.
Shehu said, "My point is that as the Director, Media and
Communications of that campaign, I was responsible for internal and
external communications and these so-called documents that were being
flown around didn't have my signature.
"I didn't fund them and I didn't authorise them. From what President
Buhari said at Chatham House, he had no iota or knowledge of those
documents. So, people cannot hold him to account on something to which
he did not commit himself".
Responding to the question that the APC had posted the documents on
its website, Shehu explained that the party had many centres of
communication, some of which were on the loose.
"APC had a campaign in which there were so many centres of public
communication and unfortunately there were some among those centres
that were more or less on the loose. Yes, it was possible that things
were being done without the knowledge or the usage of the proper
channel of communication," he said.
Referring to the President's response to a question posed to him in
London, Shehu recalled that Buhari categorically stated that he would
remove the idea of '100 days' because it was fraudulent.
Sheu quoted Buhari as saying, "The second one, high expectations and
what to do with the first 100 days. Yes, I respect that question
because quietly I was thinking about these high expectations. Those
who are following the trail of our campaigns can see how people are
turning out, some becoming emotional and crying.
"I am really getting scared that if I get there they will expect
miracles within the next week or months. It would be very dicey
handling that one. I think we have to have a deliberate campaign to
temper high expectations with some reasonableness on the part of those
who are expecting miracles to happen.
"Just to go first to the 'first 100 days', some of it is fraudulent
and I don't want to participate in any fraud in any form. Nigerians
know that we are in trouble as a people and as a country. When we get
there we will quickly get correct intelligence of what is on the
ground and inform Nigerians.
"We will make sure that the misappropriation and misapplication of
public resources will not be allowed. You would be surprised by how
much savings we will realise. That saving will be ploughed back into
development and this is what I can promise. But I would remove that
'100 days'".
Firstclassnewsline.net