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President Muhammadu Buhari has explained that he was reluctant to reply to
former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s allegations against his
administration.
Consequently, he stopped his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr
Femi Adesina, from responding and told the Minister of Culture and
Tourism, Lai Mohammed, also not to reply to the former President.
But while Mr Adesina complied with the instructions of his boss, the
Minister did not and replied.
President Buhari spoke about the development on Friday night when members
of the Buhari Support Organisation visited him at the Presidential Villa,
in Abuja.
According to the President, the age difference between Adesina and
Obasanjo was one of the reasons he ruled out a response to the latter.
He said, “My press secretary was agitated he wanted to reply the letter,
but I stopped him for two reasons.
“First, because he is much younger than Former President Olusegun
Obasanjo. Secondly, he is from the same consistency as Obasanjo so I
wouldn’t know how it will affect him if I allow him to go wild or go
public.”
The same considerations did not apply to the Information and Culture
Minister, who the President believes did a good job with his response,
even though that was done in disobedience of his directive.
“When Lai Mohammed came I said he shouldn’t, he insisted, he disobeyed me.
He said he was going to remind Nigerians where we find ourselves when we
came in as a government, where we are now and what we have done with the
resources available to us.
“And I understand he did a good job because a number of people rang me and
said Lai Mohammed has done a good job,” Buhari said.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo had accused the Federal Government of
plotting to silence him by using false witnesses to indict and possibly
arrest him.
Chief Obasanjo, an ally-turned critic of President Buhari, made the
allegations against the government in a statement issued by his media
aide, Kehinde Akinyemi.