Count President Buhari out of National Assembly crisis- Femi Adesina says

  Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, has dismissed allegations by the national assembly leadership that the Presidency was behind its many travails.

  The Senate during its plenary last Tuesday June 21st, accused the presidency of using the judiciary to fight & intimidate the legislature.

Lawmakers made the allegation in the wake of the fresh charges of forgery of senate orders leveled against Senate President Bukola Saraki and his deputy Ike Ekweremadu, for which they would be arraigned before an Abuja high court tomorrow June 27th.

In this fresh interview with Independent correspondent in Aso Villa, Innocent Oweh, Femi Adesina, dismissed the claim, stating that  President Buhari understands the separation of power in a democratic system

"They are independent arms, the judiciary is independent, the legislature is independent of the executive, so if they are independent, how can one be behind the travails of another. It doesn’t add up. If you know this President you will know that he plays by the rules strictly. So, he will not have anything to do with undermining any other independent arm of government. Not this President. They can source their troubles to somewhere else, if they have any troubles, but not this President. They are purely independent bodies, they just relate within the ambit of the law and constitution and I have no cause to believe that there is anything wrong with the relationship"he said

With the gloomy economy, workers are becoming tensed, and recently staff of the Federal Ministry of Finance protested over poor welfare issues, are you aware of their grievances?

I read the explanation from the finance ministry that what they are agitating for had been stopped by the previous government, that explains it. If there would be further explanations, I think its the ministry of finance that would do it, but I think what they have said satisfies me, it suffices for now

What would you say is the policy direction of this administration, especially on the economy?

It is that Nigerians need to look inward, all the luxuries that we can’t afford have to be cut off and that is simply what this government wants to do. There are 41 items under forex ban now, that already shows you the direction this administration is going. Whatever we cannot afford and we can do without let’s cut it off. Why do we expend scarce foreign exchange on rice, cement, toothpick or tomato puree; on things that we can produce locally, so that already shows the direction the government wants to take the economy.

Nigerians seem to have taken government deregulation policy in its stride, what informed this policy? Not only do you have fuel prices coming down, it shows you that by the time the thing is in full stream, there is going to be competition in terms of prices and people will buy where they like and that very process itself would force down prices.

The 2016 budget is undergoing implementation, should Nigerians still maintain high optimism that they had at the inception of this administration?

Optimism is part of life, optimism keeps us going. By the time we lose optimism, we have lost everything. So, I expect that we continue to be optimistic. As clear as day follows the night, things will get better in Nigeria.

Buhari has obviously made his mark in tackling terrorism but Nigerians would like to know what gave him the impetus to deliver in a short time?

The difference is clear. Government is a continuum; we know where the last administration stopped. This government continued from there and we all know where we are now, where we are today is very far to where we were this time last year. In fact, there is almost no comparison between where we are now on the issue of terrorism and where we were this time last year.

How was the magic performed to quell the crisis?

You know the President himself is a retired General, so he knows what to do.