Nigeria Content Online

The Presidency
yesterday reiterated its claim that Goodluck Jonathan inherited most of
his aides from his predecessor, late Umaru Yar’adua who also took over
some of them from the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo.

The spokesperson
to the president, Ima Niboro said there was need to condemn “the
willful distortion of the list of appointees.” He said, “If you go
through the list you will know that some of them were already there and
only relocated to fill vacancies at the president’s wing,” he said.

A NEXT report had stated that the Presidency has an army of 133 aides who get paid about N780 million every year.

The report also
said Mr. Jonathan, after being sworn in as president last May,
following the death of Mr Yar’Adua, not only retained almost all the
special aides appointed by his late boss, but also appointed 57 new
ones.

Mr Niboro, in his
second response on the issue, said most of the new appointments were
made to fill in vacant positions at the office of the President and
Vice President, when the president vacated his office as vice president
to the office of the President.

“You don’t come
into office and fire everyone. Here we are complaining about
institutional memory and someone somewhere believes the president
should fire everybody,” he said. “Having said that, I think it is quite
silly to claim that I told a lie, when the evidence that I am correct
stares you in the face. I maintain that apart from the normal positions
the president filled in the presidency, a large number were inherited.
The president has created only a handful of key positions, like the
special advisers on power, policy monitoring, SSA on Diaspora Affairs,
the Coordinator of Anti Terrorism, and a couple of others that were
found to be needed for the times.

“Indeed I can tell
you that the president has not even exhausted the Special Adviser
positions approved for him by the National Assembly,” he said.