The President Muhammadu Buhari has said that he pittied the Minister of Information, Mr. Lai Mohammed who took pains in explaining the actions and inactions of government to the people. "For you to talk to whoever came to visit us throughout that year, I wonder how each of your diaries would be, because people were expecting this change mantra in their own way.

"How do you define change? Luckily our party identified three major items, security, economy and corruption. One of the men I pitied is Lai Mohammed. Everyday, he is on TV explaining our performance or lack of it," he said.

Buhari, made the comment while hosting State House Correspondents to a luncheon at the new banquet hall of the Presidential Villa yesterday, was offering retrospective highlights of his early days in office after his inauguration. Our shock over $2.1 billion arms deal One shocking discovery of the government, according to the president, was the "sharing" of the $2.1 billion meant for the purchase of arms for the military to fight insurgency in the north east.

"People were trusted and the most recent one which we haven't recovered from is the $2.1billion dollars which was given by the government then, to the military to buy hardware to fight the insurgency which had taken over part of the country and they just sat just the way you are sitting now and shared the money into their own account. They didn't even bother. So we are still trying to get the cooperation of the international community and so on and we have to do it with a lot of respect to the judiciary."