The Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, on Sunday listed some efforts that President Muhammadu Buhari had made to end the insurgency in the north-eastern part of Nigeria and tackle corruption.
In an interview on Channels Television Mr Adesina gave an update on the official visit of President Buhari to the U.S., saying a lot was achieved. He expressed optimism that the visit would yield needed result.
At a meeting with President Barack Obama, President Jonathan had discussed counter-terrorism operations, anti corruption war and development of the Nigerian economy.
Nigerians are eager to see results of the visit, but Mr Adesina believes Nigerians need to be patient, stressing that the results of the visit may not be noticed soon.
“it is not as if you will come back home immediately with results in your pocket.
“The requests made by President Buhari will be sent to the congress for deliberations before any action on them.
“I have no doubts that positive result and benefit will come from that trip,” the President’s spokesman said.
According to Mr Adesina, President Buhari made a passionate appeal about the need for the U.S. to look at the Leahy Law that stops the U.S. from selling weapons to Nigeria due to indictment of the the Nigerian military on issues of human rights abuse.
He also said that President Buhari had expressed optimism that the requests would go through when it is presented to the Congress.
On why Nigeria had depended so much on getting arms from the U.S. to fight the Boko Haram terrorist group, Mr Adesina said that “the kind of armament that Nigeria requires can only be gotten from the US”.
“Even the American President cannot unilaterally approve arms for Nigeria without taking it back to congress.”
On what the government is doing to end the insurgency, he said that the government had put a lot of strategies in place to ensure that the insurgency would end soon.
“As we speak now, a lot of things have been done and the target time for those things to come into effect is soon and in a couple of days.
“Our President has visit chad and Niger to seek further collaboration between Nigeria and the countries. He will be in Cameroon later this week,” he stated.
There have been meetings between the leaders of the nations in Nigeria to discuss the collaboration that is needed to end the insurgency, with focus on boosting the effort of the Multi-National Joint Task Force set up to boost the war on terror which will swing into action on July 31.
Mr Adesina further stressed that the President would pursue the anti-corruption war to a convincing end, explaining that it was the focus of a meeting between President Buhari and the Attorney General of the United States.
At the meeting the President was assured that the U.S. would help Nigeria trace and repatriate stolen funds not only in the U.S but in all American jurisdiction, a promise that President Obama had made months ago.
The President said a lot of information had been sent in by Nigerians and that the stolen funds are in billions of dollars.
A political analyst and a lawyer, Dr Chima Nnaji, said that the increase in the activities of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was as a result of the body language and perception about the President.
He further said that the increase in the activities of the commission was not new, as such increase was witnessed in the era of Mr Nuhu Ribadu as the EFCC chairman.
Mr Nnaji urged the President to begin to give Nigerians reasons to trust his capability to tackle corruption by achieving results.
“It is now incumbent on the president not to liquidate the goodwill that is running for him,” he said.
