Critics of Buhari are unfair to him

Alhaji Suleiman Muhammed Argungu is the Chief of Staff to Kebbi State Governor, Abubakar Atiku Bagudu. The former Deputy Governor, in this interview, spoke on a range of issues about President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, his anti-corruption posture and criticisms against him among others. President Muhammadu Buhari is being criticized over the nation’s economy. What is your take on this? Those criticizing President Muhammadu Buhari for the current economic situation in the country are judging his administration wrongly. We should thank God for sending him to us at this particular period of our national life. Everybody knew that the economy was at the verge of collapse before he came in. The insurgency in North-East was out of control, kidnapping, cattle rustling and above all corruption was becoming a way of live before former President Goodluck Jonathan handed over to him. Imagine the case of those high ranking Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), personalities that are involved in the arms deal scandal. Buhari did not meet things intact. So many damages have been done to the economy. Nobody should expect any miracle because the president is not a magician. He is at present trying to put things in order so they should allow him to do that. He needs the support of Nigerians to put the nation back on course. If God had not brought him as president of this country who knows what would have happened to Nigeria now? It was badly managed by the previous administrations. All the noise they are making about him now is just politics and it is expected. How would you rate his anti-corruption campaign so far? It is in order. He cannot take everybody to the EFCC, he cannot take everybody to court and he cannot jail everybody at the same time. He has to follow the campaign systematically. Some of the people that stole our money have started returning some of them because of what is happening to those caught by the EFCC. He is on the right track to ensure that from department to department, ministry to ministry and agency to agency those who have stolen public funds are returning them back to government. What is happening now on anti-corruption posture of the Buhari administration is an eye opener. Who would have known that people like the security chiefs that were entrusted with our funds and in charge of our security agencies dealing with insurgency were just pocketing the funds? Ismail Adebayo, Kano People need to understand what this means. It means all government accounts should be known by the custodian of government treasury. It should not be a situation where every ministry, every agency and parastatal have accounts without the agency that is responsible for the funds knowing about such accounts. If the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Nigeria now know the accounts being operated by ministries and agencies it will be easier for control and monitoring. It is a way of preventing the civil servants from putting themselves in danger of corruption. The nation’s currency has fallen against the dollar and the price of crude oil has also gone down. What is the way out for Nigeria? The fall in crude oil price and devaluation of the naira was not caused by this administration. It is affecting every nation right now. Whether they are oil producing or none oil producing nations it is affecting every country. The administration is listening to advices from the professionals on both monetary and economic sectors of this nation and the world as a whole on how Nigeria can move out of the mess. It is time for Nigerians to know that there is wealth in the soil. We have to dig it, identify the wealth for our development as a nation. Buhari is trying to diversify the economy and trying to take us back to what our forefathers were doing in those days. Remember from the inception nobody knew Nigeria has oil. It was out of the Cocoa, Cotton, Groundnut, Palm oil and Hides and Skin and other agricultural products that Nigeria before independence was using to fund its economy. These were the sources of wealth of this country and it was the proceeds from the products that we used to develop the oil industry and other growths. At the time Buhari came in Nigerians could hardly feed.