Presidency slams Financial Times over article on Buhari’s govt

The Presidency on Sunday criticised the Financial Times article on the Nigerian government.

The United Kingdom-based newspaper had in an article written by one David Piling’s on January 31, said President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration was “sleepwalking into disaster.”

The Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, Garba Shehu, who reacted to the article in a statement, said the Federal Government had performed creditably in the fight against terrorism in the country.

He knocked the writer for leaving the gains recorded by the government in the six years, saying the Boko Haram sect used to administer an area the size of Belgium at inauguration but currently controls no territory.

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The statement read: “We wish to correct the wrong perceptions contained in the article “What is Nigeria’s Government For,” by David Piling, Financial Times (UK), January 31, 2022.

“The caricature of a government sleepwalking into disaster (What is Nigeria’s government for? January 31, 2022 ) was predictable from a correspondent, who jets briefly in and out of Nigeria on the same British Airways flight he so criticises.

“He highlights rising banditry in my country as proof of such slumber.

“What he leaves out are the security gains made over two Presidential terms. The terror organisation Boko Haram used to administer an area the size of Belgium at the inauguration; now, they control no territory.

“The first comprehensive plan to deal with decades-old clashes between nomadic herders and sedentary farmers – experienced across the width of the Sahel – has been introduced: pilot ranches are reducing the competition for water and land that drove past tensions.

“Banditry grew out of such clashes. Criminal gangs took advantage of the instability, flush with guns that flooded the region following the Western-triggered implosion of Libya.

“The situation is grave. Yet as with other challenges, it is one that the government would face down.”

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