Presidency Blames Jonathan For Buhari’s Delay In Appointing Ministers

The Presidency has blamed Nigeria’s immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan for causing the delay in the formation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet.

Buhari was inaugurated on May 29, 2015 but it took the president close to six months to form his cabinet and this attracted widespread criticisms.

However, while speaking on Channels Television, when he featured on Sunrise Daily, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, said Jonathan did not give Buhari handover notes until 48 hours before his departure.

According to him, the refusal of Jonathan’s government to cooperate with the transition committee had a negative effect on the current administration. 

Shehu’s statement came after Frank Shuaibu, Special Adviser on Public Communications to Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who also featured on the programme, had listed Buhari’s delay in appointing his cabinet as one of the factors that plunged the economy into a recession.

But while reacting to this, Buhari’s spokesman said the president was kept in the dark of the workings of the government and had to wait till he assumed office, causing the delay in the appointments.

His words: “The claims made by my dear friend here that President Muhammadu Buhari spent 166 days without forming a cabinet, that absolutely is untrue. It took him time to form a cabinet because the outgoing administration in 2015 did not cooperate with the transition committee.”

“The President was given handover notes 48 hours to the handover of power and for whatever reason, the President at that time determined that two governments would not operate at the same time.”

“The question that president Buhari was asking, for details of this and that, amounting to running a second government in office.

“And he came out to all his ministers and permanent secretaries not to cooperate with Muhammadu Buhari that this country will not have two governments running at the same.

“What this means is that President Muhammadu Buhari had wait to come into office and learn about all the inner things that they had done so that he can build on the processes. The government he inherited was horribly disjointed, it was broken.”