Group attacks presidency over achievement claims

President Muhammadu Buhari

A pro-democracy group, Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) has dismissed claims by senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu that released fourth Buharimeter Report was “partisan and mischievous”.


Idayat Hassan, a director with CDD said the group’s record a non-partisan watchdog of the democratic and governance processes spans over 18 years and that it was surprising that Mallam Shehu would choose to discredit the balanced and well-researched findings in the report.
She added that the report apart from commending the Buhari administration for some successes especially the insurgency and the anti-corruption wars.

She also said it was wrong for Mallam Shehu to attempt to imply that CDD fabricated the 222 promises, when it was contained in the manifesto of the APC and also monitored during the campaigns of President Muhammadu Buhari as the APC candidate before his election.

“The Buharimeter Report, which the Presidential spokesman tried to impugn in his statement, is a globally recognized governance-tracking tool that works to hold governments to account for the electoral compact which ruling parties have proposed to the electorate during the campaign. Similar initiatives have been used to interrogate and assess the fulfillment of electoral promises in countries such as the United States, France, Senegal, Iran, and Afghanistan.

“It is non-partisan and innovative tool for effective citizens’ participation in the governance of their country. The methodology of Buharimeter is to meticulously track promises made by politicians, while seeking the votes of the people and objectively monitor the performance of the government against those promises. His statement clearly suggests he has not even read our report but is clearly responding to certain headlines that sensationalized our report,” Hassan said.

Recall that Buharimetre stated that the APC-led federal government has done little in many areas of national development except its anti-corruption crusade. The report assessed President Buhari between May 29 and December 31 of last year.

It states that: “PMB has only achieved 1 out of the 222 tracked promises, which constitutes 0.5 percent of the promises.