Adebayo Shittu, former minister of communications, says a number of projects he initiated during his stint at the federal cabinet were frustrated by colleagues.
Shittu served as minister of communications from 2015 to
2019 in Muhammadu Buhari’s first tenure as civilian president.
In an interview on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television
programme, Shittu admitted that the Buhari administration failed to fulfil some
of its campaign promises.
“Even as an individual who had a mandate to oversee
communications, there were several projects which I initiated but were
frustrated along the line,” he said.
“For instance, I
wanted to do an ICT university for Nigeria and I made a proposal and it got to
the federal executive council, only for a number of our colleagues to oppose it
and at the end of the day, Mr President said ‘Barrister Shittu, I want to
commend you for your hard work on this memo but this is an overambitious
project’.
“That was my saddest day in government.
“This is one of the things that happened and I was not happy
but at the end of the day, when the federal executive council as a body rejects
a proposal, you cannot do anything.”
Shittu added that he had no regrets serving as minister.
“I did not regret serving because I was able to do other
things,” he said.
“We do know very well that Nigeria had virtually been run
aground before he (Buhari) came onboard. Even as someone who served in the
Buhari government during the first term, I am always honest enough to admit
certain failures that we had.”
Shittu added that the president was sometimes kept in the
dark about contract awards processes and the goings-on in his administration.
“Let me tell you, there were a lot of manipulations and we
even heard that a lot of the so-called approvals did not emanate from President
Buhari,” he said.
“There were a lot of manipulations and approvals which did
not emanate from the president. I am telling you confidently that a lot of it
did not get his attention.”
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