How Buhari Rejected Contract Kickbacks, Luxury Wristwatch During His Time As President – Shehu

The Special Assistant to former President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, has recounted how his principal turned down financial kickbacks from a certain contractor who used to handle major government contracts, such as roads, railways, and bridges, during his time in office.

According to him, the former President frowns at project cost padding.

According to Shehu, Buhari confronted the management team of the company (name withheld) when they visited him at the Aso Rock Villa and ordered them to stop imposing the percentage cuts (10 per cent or more) usually built into their contracts and shared among government leaders and civil servants.

The former presidential media aide disclosed that Buhari told them firmly that his government would not accept kickbacks or unnecessary favours from contractors because all those costs are built back into the project costs.

Naijaonpoint reports he made this known in his recently launched book, ‘According to the President: Lessons from a Presidential Spokesperson’s Experience.’

He also narrated how Buhari directed him to return a diamond-plated wristwatch gifted to him by a giant construction company.

According to him,Buhari told the construction company, “We have been informed that percentage cuts (10 per cent or more) are built into your contracts, to be shared among government leaders and civil servants. This must stop. We will not accept kickbacks.

“We have equally been informed that you, as handlers of major contracts, build homes for government leaders, buy expensive cars and maintain them for the beneficiaries; when they or close relations fall ill, you take them to hospitals abroad, including the use of air ambulances when that is warranted, at no cost to them. Our finding is that nothing you give is free.

“All such costs are built into government contracts. We don’t want that to continue.”

Shehu also noted another occasion in which Buhari respectfully ordered that a watch presented to him as a gift from a Nigerian-American icon in the global luxury watch and jewellery industry be returned to the giver, and he “dutifully did so.”