Buhari Has Regrets, Feels He Could Have Done Better As President – Femi Adesina | READ MORE

Mr Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser to former president Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, has revealed that his principal has some regrets and also feels he could have done somethings better while in office.

Adesina said this on Wednesday while speaking in Osogbo during 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.

“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.

Speaking on Buhari’s naira redesign policy, Adesina said it was a good policy as “there was no kidnapping” during that period and nine sitting governors lost their senatorial bid which is unusual as they had no money to share.

In Adesina’s words;

“The policy (naira redesign) brought hardship to Nigerians. I had N20,000, which I stretched for almost two weeks. There was a day I had a full house and we wanted to cook breakfast. But midway, the gas finished.

“When they came to tell me that the gas had finished, I didn’t know what to do because to fill that big cylinder, I needed N40,000. But I didn’t have it. I was Special Adviser to the President but I didn’t have cash. One boy living with me had to bail me out to fill the gas, and I refunded.

“So, it was everybody that bore the brunt. You will recall that even during that time, there was no kidnapping. I remember some people went to kidnap an APC chairman, or was it secretary, in Kano. After holding him for three days, nobody called to ask how much they would 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 had 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 contest an election and 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.”