Garba Shehu: Nigeria, death and the presidency {Opinion} vanguardngr.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from vanguardngr.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Rotimi Fasan
‘The Presidency’, which can be any of Garba Shehu, Femi Adesina or Abubakar Malami, depending on which of them cares to speak at any point in time, is never short of an answer to any question raised by Nigerians.
The Presidency is in a sense the defacto president of Nigeria, another word for and the alter-ego of President Muhammadu Buhari, who has apparently entrusted the fate of Nigeria to it. The disappointing thing about this all-purpose, shadowy body (if anyone is still capable of such emotion as far as Abuja is concerned in this present time) is not so much that ‘the presidency’ has ready-made answers to everything, but rather that the quality of the responses tends to reduce every issue to the realm of partisanship. For the presidency, every criticism is an attempt by implacable opponents of the President to attack him or his government for no good reason.
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Published 12:20 am
A member of the House of Representatives, Musa Abdullahi, who is representing Bida/Katcha/Gbako Federal Constituency in Niger State, speaks with LEKE BAIYEWU on the activities of the All Progressives Congress-led government, the National Assembly and his controversial Religious Discrimination (Prohibition and Prevention) Bill 2021
As
a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress, which is in the majority in the National Assembly, are you proud of being part of this government with the spate of insecurity across the country, even in Niger State where you come from?
I think this is one of such times that we must look beyond party affiliation because when you talk about security, it is something that affects everybody irrespective of party affiliation. And if we are to put it in the proper perspective and context, you will appreciate the fact that this government actually inherited some of these things from the previous government
Between a wailing Godwin Obaseki and a hailing Zainab Ahmed
On
By Rotimi Fasan
ONE of the less aggravating things that happened last week, something that offered diversion if not comic relief from the now-humdrum news of mass abductions and murders whose economic dimension is often occluded by their bestial details, was the spat between two unlikely adversaries: the Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, and the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed.
It followed the release of an apparently private recording of the governor, lamenting the state of the Nigerian economy. In this age of social media and secret devices hardly anything is considered private. Not a locker room, or more precisely, beer parlour talk. Otherwise, Obaseki would probably have kept his musing to himself, or at least within the close circle of his associates.
On the same day, the Coalition of Civil Society for Good Governance called the rising calls against Pantami a well-funded programme by highly placed individuals to heighten insecurity in the country.
The governor noted that in an ideal society, an allegation that the United States of America has placed a serving minister on its watch list as regards to terrorism, should jolt any government into action.
“If it was really where a government is working, if an American government says your minister is on a watch list, it calls for concern for you say look there is a problem. The moment a high government official is on a watch list as to regards to terrorism, no government can fold its hands and allow it,” he said .