The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, John Oyegun has explained why President Muhammadu Buhari is delaying in appointing ministers into his cabinet.
Oyegun however dismissed claims that Buhari’s administration was progressing slowly.
The APC Chairman, who spoke during an interview on the “Osasu Igbinedion Show”, also addressed the recent National Assembly crisis which rocked the party.
Excerpts below:
Why is President Buhari going slowly on the issues of governance, especially as it relates to cabinet appointment?
Well, I’m sorry about that tag. I think it is terribly undeserved. I can understand because the people of this nation have suffered for so long and President Buhari has such a reputation for uprightness and the rest of it.
One will acknowledge that people thought there is a bit of magic to him and that once he came into office, he will flick the switch and everything will start being corrected. But that is not reality. The situation that he took over has turned out to be a lot worse than we in our worst imaginations ever expected. That is point number one.
Point number two is that the expectations of the public in terms of the kind of persons that they don’t want to see in governance are so high that even he (Buhari) with all his prestige and core followership has to be careful about who he appoints even as a cleaner in the villa.
Yes, it may look slow. But before you do any project, you have to plan. He needs to plan. We had a very short transition period. That should have been three months. But he didn’t have three months. But in spite of that you can see the changes are gradually coming. You can see the change.
Take the international arena, where we were almost reduced to pariah status. Today, the status of Nigeria in the world arena has changed. He hit the ground running as far as the reconnection of Nigeria with the international community – as a credible nation with people who can do business – is concerned.
Were you really disappointed by the current crisis rocking your party, especially in the National Assembly, having been accused of supporting one of the candidates?
Well, disappointed is the word. I cannot hide the fact that it was a bit of setback unexpected. Things had gone so well that I thought it would be one whole ball game all the way.
But maybe, we need that bit of hiccup to show us that it was not yet eureka. When you merge and put people with disparity in interest and ambitions together at one stage or the other, there is likelihood to have disconnects and clash of interests.
When everybody now wants to assert authority and control, that’s precisely what happened. We should have expected it. But I didn’t think it would be quite as bad as it became. But those are parts of the growing pains that we have to suffer when I was talking about the growth that came together.
I think these are the things that finally came to a head in the National Assembly with the party at stake in a position. The party is insisting on discipline. The party is insisting on supremacy of the party. But at the same time, it takes into consideration that this is an independent arm of the tripod of government. So, their feelings and expectations must also be taken into consideration.
But let me make this clear, at no stage did we dictate to them. We always provide a platform for members of the House of Representatives and senators to indicate their preference for leadership. That was what the party did at every stage. I think we are on top of that issue.
We hope it will go well. In fact, the accusations against me were somehow the greatest vindication. There were two major interest groups. ‘A’ said I was favouring ‘B’. ‘B’ said I was favouring ‘A’. I said hurray! That showed I had placed my foursquare in the middle by not aligning with either.
