According to Adesina, who spoke in Osogbo on Wednesday, such is normal for any human being.

The ex-presidential spokesman was a guest at a programme tagged ‘Media Dialogue with Femi Adesina’ organised by the Association of Veteran Journalists in Osun State.

He said before Buhari left office, he had a two-hour chat with him, during which he asked all manner of questions. There is no living human being that will not regret certain things. It is one of the questions I asked the President.

Before we left office, I sat with him for about two hours and I asked him every question under the sun; there was no question I didn’t ask him. There were things he (Buhari) felt could have been done better,” Adesina said.

He, however, defended Buhari’s controversial naira redesign policy, saying it was for the good of the nation.

You will recall that even during that time, there was no kidnapping. I remember some people went to kidnap an APC chairman or is it secretary in Kano. After holding him for three days and nobody was calling to ask how much they will collect because there was no cash, they just slapped him three times and told him to go.

“Even kidnappers were out of business because there was no naira and do you know that we have a cleaner election because of that policy?

“Nine serving governors couldn’t go to the Senate. They contested but lost. Have you ever seen a governor who will contest an election and will not win? But because there was no money to spread around, they couldn’t win. The policy was not bad in its entirety. There were issues with it but it was not bad in its entirety,” he said.

He said this Tuesday morning on Arise News Television programme ‘The Morning Show’ while speaking on the achievements of President Muhammadu Buhari in the last eight years.

Adesida noted that all that the government does is create an enabling environment for creating jobs while the private sector creates jobs.

Responding to the question he was asked on President Buhari’s promise to create 3 million jobs annually in 2015, Adesina said, “Did you say 3 million was the promise? I wouldn’t say he put a figure. What I recall was that President Buhari gave the per cent of joblessness in the country. I wouldn’t recall that he gave a specific figure for the number of jobs we are creating. For all you know, that may have come from anywhere.

Regard as it may, it is the job and the duty of the government to create an enabling environment for jobs in the country. It is not the government itself that creates jobs. All it does is to create an enabling environment.

“Most of the jobs you need in a country would come from the private sector. As long as you have an enabling environment, it is the private sector that will create the jobs.”

He, however, noted that Buhari has achieved in all sectors including oil and gas, infrastructure, legislative matters, and security.

The Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, stated this in his article titled FROM N’EAST WITH GOOD TIDINGS, assuring Nigerians that the President will continue to fight for the security of the country till his last day in office.

According to Adesina, the people of the North East have good stories to tell today owing to the bravery of the Buhari administration in fighting the insurgency that almost crippled the region.

Who feels it knows it all. Perhaps the region most affected by the insurgency that almost strangulated the country since 2009 is the North East. It was there that Boko Haram started, proliferated, and spread to other parts of the land.

I was in two States in the region early this week, joining President Muhammadu Buhari to take part in campaigns of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the forthcoming general elections.

“First port of call was Adamawa on Monday, leaving later in the day for Yobe, where we stayed the night, and spent most part of Tuesday. And what did we hear at every stop? Plaudits, accolades, and commendation for the President on the much-improved security situation in the region.

“There are some people hellbent on giving us a siege mentality of insecurity in the country. They have deliberately refused to look at the brighter side of things, and all you hear from them is ‘worsening insecurity.’ That’s all they say on TV, radio, on social media, in newspapers, from the pulpits, mosques, anywhere, everywhere. They deliberately make it seem that the only thing happening in Nigeria is insecurity, they keep trumpeting it daily, even when confronted by vast improvements. They are soused and marooned in scaremongering.

“But who feels it knows it. Ask people in the North East, and they will have stories to tell you, of how their very homes, schools, hospitals, local government headquarters, palaces of emirs, had been seized by insurgents, who were calling the shots from those places. And how a certain battle-tested retired General Buhari came, took the war to the army of occupation, and flushed them out. One of the most poignant stories we heard during the trip was at the palace of the Emir of Damaturu, Hashimi 11 El Kanemi. Governor Mai Mala Buni recounted how the palace was overrun by insurgents, and everybody ran for dear lives. He told the President:

“Yobe is one of the States you liberated from the clutches of Boko Haram terrorists. Before, in this very Palace, if you placed one billion dollars on the table, and you asked someone to come and pick it, nobody dared come, because insurgents were occupying the place. But your coming onboard has made that history, and the people are now enjoying relative peace.”

Appearing on a Channels Television program on Sunday, November 27, presidential aide Femi Adesina stated that the average Nigerian have always wanted to leave and people should not equate it to something being wrong.

Adesina said; “The average Nigerian had always wanted to leave. And it is not just in Nigeria. It is in most countries of the world, particularly in the third world.They always believe that it is greener on the other side. You see, the truth is that if you have an opportunity to better yourself in any part of the world, there is nothing wrong with it. If you think migrating legally is good for you, all well and good. By all means, go!But you cannot now say that because people are leaving, then it is a sign that something is fundamentally wrong.There are Nigerians who would never leave the country no matter how things are”.

Adesina also spoke about the country’s security, adding that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration would hand over a safer country.

He added; “No doubt about it. He would leave a safer country. When he came in 2015, you could not be sure Nigeria would exist in the next one month. As of 2015, what was happening was that nobody could confidently say that Nigeria would be on the map in the following next week, month or year. But we saw that he came and took the battle to the insurgency.When he came, the insurgency was the main thing and he took the battle to them. Then, it became hydra-headed – banditry, kidnapping for ransom, cultism, and separatist agitations joined. How many challenges can one administration really confront? That’s the issue with the Buhari administration. From day one till now, it was from one challenge to the other.”

According to a statement signed by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, Buhari spoke after receiving updates from former President Goodluck Jonathan, on the conflict between Mali and Cote d’Ivoire over the latter’s soldiers who have been detained since July 2022.

The statement is titled, ‘Mali Updates: ECOWAS Special Envoy, Goodluck Jonathan, briefs President Buhari.’

About 49 Ivorian soldiers had been detained in Mali for “unlawful entry.”

On Sunday, September 4, only the three females in the team had been released, leaving 46 in custody.

The months-long issue has strained diplomatic relations between the two West African States.

Cote d’Ivoire condemned the act as “hostage taking” and said it may take action, prompting the intervention of ECOWAS leaders, as advocated by the Special Envoy, former President Jonathan.

Buhari, on his part, pledged an initiative from Nigeria towards an immediate resolution of the diplomatic deadlock.

He said Buhari’s respect for the dignity of all his appointees and others working with him was part of the reasons why those in his (Buhari) circle will always stand by the President.

Adesina revealed this in an article titled, ‘Inside PMB’s meeting with ministers exiting the cabinet’ which was shared on his Facebook page on Thursday.

The presidential aide said Buhari’s respect for human dignity led to the last week’s valedictory session for appointees leaving the cabinet to pursue political ambitions at different levels.

Giving details of what transpired before relieving service chiefs inherited when Buhari took over power in 2015, Adesina said, “I’ve told this story before, but let me tell it again. The President had retained the Service Chiefs he inherited in 2015 for some weeks, when the usual practice was to remove such people with the speed of light. He didn’t, but kept them for almost two months.

“The day the President decided to appoint new Service Chiefs, he sent for me, and I reported in his office. He told me what he had decided to do, and he gave me the names of the incoming set.

“Then President Buhari gave a strange instruction. “I’ve discussed with the exiting Service Chiefs, but don’t announce their exit immediately. Let them get home, and let them be the ones to announce to their families and friends. It’s not good for a man to have a job in the morning, lose it in the afternoon, and he hears it over the media.”

“I told the President that once he had told those Service Chiefs, it would be virtually impossible to keep the news till the next, as he was asking me to do.

The President looked at me with a smile on his face, and declared: “You won’t understand, because you’ve not been sacked before. Me, I’ve been sacked, so I know how it feels.”

“That was how we held back the official news of the appointment of new Service Chiefs for a while. President Buhari believes in the dignity of man. The same thing he did with the two Ministers who had to leave the cabinet involuntarily last year.

“He had privately met with the Ministers of Power, and that of Agriculture and Rural Development, told them that time was up, before the other cabinet members and the nation were told.

“That was not the staple Nigerians were fed with, or used to. They usually would tune their radio sets to Radio Nigeria 4 pm news, or NTA Network News, only to hear that some public officials had been dismissed “with immediate effect.” Some of them would still be in their offices, working, or be at home relaxing with their families, when the news would hit like a thunderbolt. Obviously, many leaders enjoyed that supercilious and cavalier treatment of their appointees, but not President Buhari. He believes in the dignity of man.”

He added that though some of the ministers have since rescinded their decisions to run for elective offices, “that is not the purpose of this piece. The purport is to dwell on the dignity of man, how some leaders love to trample on it, and how President Buhari loves to respect and uphold it. That is why some of us love and admire him, and would stand by him through thick and thin, whether in government or out of it.”

Adesina, in a piece titled, ‘They Hate God, They Loathe Humanity’, described the attack by terrorists on hundreds of passengers onboard an Abuja-Kaduna train on Monday as a “carnage” and a “premeditated murder from the very bottom of hell”.

He said, “Whoever or whatever they are, terrorists, bandits, it doesn’t matter. They sow evil, and they will reap it. They do not deserve to live. Not in this world, nor the next. They need to be sent to their master, the Devil, and speedily too.”

Adesina lamented that the terrorist attacks on trains was affecting the “rail revolution in the country” and that the insurgents abhor any form of progress or development.

He said though his principal, President Muhammadu Buhari, won’t be able to carry weapons to face the marauders like he did when he was much younger as a military officer, he had ordered the Service Chiefs, and the Inspector General of Police to “wipe out these evil people. Kill them. Eliminate them.”

The presidential aide also blamed Nigerians for the insecurity in the country, saying they perpetuate evil through negative comments.

The role of some Nigerians in perpetuating anomie in the country is worrisome. Through their tongues. They say evil about the country, utter negativity, thinking they are saying it against the government of the day. I mean even bishops, pastors, imams, commentators, talk show hosts, all sorts. They are engaged in war of tongues with Nigeria. They don’t know that the more they say it, the more evil happens. The cup fills up, and runs over.

Let’s change our tongues. Change our hearts about our country. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Let’s begin to bless our country, rather than curse, and sow negatives in the hearts of people.”

“Those who visit evil on society do not deserve to live, no matter what some activists may say. They should be sent to hell, and I join the President to plead with our security agencies: wipe them out. Kill them. Eliminate them. They have declared war against the country and its people. We are at war, yes we are. They do not deserve to live. They have lost their humanity. Wipe them out. Kill. Eliminate,” he admitted.

The move, he said, had been the strategy of those who had a dark past and was afraid the President’s uprightness and incorruptibility may affect their chances going forward.

According to him, it was a narrative deliberately concocted and conjured by those who were afraid of the probity and integrity he could bring into public office.

Adesina, who is the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to Buhari, stated this in his article titled, ‘Buhari, Osinbajo and the bigotry question’, shared on his Facebook page on Thursday.

He added that after the bigotry narrative had give way after the President realised in his dream in 2015, and chose Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, a Redeemed Pastor, as his second in command.

“President Muhammadu Buhari is a man that had been serially de-marketed, flagellated, and excoriated as a religious bigot. It was a narrative deliberately concocted and conjured by those who were afraid of the probity and integrity he could bring into public office. They tarred him with the brush of bigotry, which hindered the man from attaining the presidency for a long while.

“But every lie has an expiry date. A time came when the public no longer bought the jejune argument. Pro-Buhari forces fought back vigorously. One of them was eminent virologist, Prof Tam David-West (God rest his soul). He wrote a book with the title ‘16 Sins of Muhammadu Buhari,’ in which he debunked the lies being told against the former military head of state. One of them was the allegation of being a religious bigot.

“A larger number of Nigerians got to understand that the bigotry tag was fake, false, an attempt to give the dog a bad name, in order to hang it. Muhammadu Buhari coasted to office as President in 2015, after three earlier trials.

“But there is still a remnant that maintains its entrenched position. And they are the ones who look down on us Christians, for going to “work with a Fulani Muslim, a jihadist who does not want to see Christians at all.” True? False.

Highlighting the President’s level of religious tolerance, Adesina wrote, “Who else can you trust more than the man (or woman) that cooks or serves your meal? Possibly nobody. Buhari has Christian cooks, male and female

“And who can you also trust more than the man that drives you? He can decide to do bad, bad things to you. Buhari has Christian drivers.”

He added, “As the administration winds down (in 14 months) I pray for grace to be able to document my experiences with this President. People would then realize how unfair they’ve been to him. A man more sinned against, rather than sinning.”

Adesina disclosed this in an article titled, ‘Buhari’s Kind of Kindness’, and shared on his official Facebook page on Thursday.

The presidential spokesperson noted that the president’s commitment to the welfare of the poor and his love for the vulnerable earned him victories during the 2015 election and reelection in 2019.

He said that rather than engage in bribery, Buhari will channel the fund to better the lots of hapless and the disadvantaged across the country.

“President Buhari won’t give you sack-loads of cash to compromise you, or curry your favor. He would rather deploy same to do good deeds, showing kindness to the weak and deprived, the aching and hurting,” he wrote.

Furthermore, Adesina described his principal as “A man with empathy for the poor, the weak and the vulnerable”.

The article read in part, “He loves them deeply, and they also love him to bits. That is President Muhammadu Buhari for you.Its often said that the man already has at least 12 million votes waiting for him in different parts of the country before the first ballot is cast in general elections.The poor and the vulnerable constitute this large army of voters. They swarm round him, as bees do to the honeypot.

He made this known on Tuesday during an interview with Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme.

He said “Buhari will sign the bill) any moment from now, It could be today, it could be tomorrow, it could be anytime, but within the 30 days.It could be signed today; it could be signed tomorrow. In a matter of hours, not days. Hours could be 24 hours, it could be 48 hours; not days, not weeks.”

Adesina had on Monday cautioned against cheap politics over the perceived delay by the President in assenting to the Electoral Bill

In a statement titled, ‘Assent To Electoral Bill: No Need For Saber Ratling,’ Adesina said some interest groups are cashing in on the perceived delay to foment civil disorder.

This is as he pointed out that the President still has enough time to assent to the Bill which he said has to be thoroughly scrutinised and made as near-perfect as possible.