President Buhari has explained why he refused to reply former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s explosive letter to him chronicling his alleged failures and advising him not to seek re-election in the 2019 polls.
Speaking in Bauchi during a state banquet in his honour on Thursday night April 26th, President Buhari said he preferred a complete silence to Obasanjo’s letter but caved in after Lai Mohammed insisted that it would be proper to make a veiled response without mentioning Obasanjo’s name in which he would outline the achievements of the administration thus far.
Speaking at the dinner, President Buhari said
''Tonight, I want to remind the people of what Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information did against my wish, in the sense that when a letter was written containing our failures as an administration, Lai Mohammed agitated that he should reply and I said no.
“I said no for two reasons: He is much younger than the person who wrote the letter and me; two, he is from the same constituency as the person who wrote the letter. But when Lai Mohammed came, I said he should go out but he said he won’t go. I asked why and he said let me give him a chance to say what he wanted to do. I said go on. Lai said in what he would do, he would not mention names but only try to remind Nigerians what the country was when we came in, where we are now, and what we have done with the resources available to us.
“Eventually, I had to admit that he was right and I was wrong because a number of people who could get in touch with me have said that Lai had done a good job. A lot of them are in the media who I don’t have time to see – but of course, they are very busy people. Therefore, I am very happy with the performance of our party, the All Progressive Congress,” he said
President Buhari also went down memory lane to narrate how the betrayal of some of his former political associates informed his insistence on finding credible platform that would enable him rescue the country from sinking as he said it would have been if the then ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) continued ruling Nigeria.
“I will like to go down some historical antecedents so that people can assess. When we were in the All People’s Party APP, I went through an impartial primary and I won the ticket. I think for the third or fourth time and while I was in court, because I felt I was ready to be President, the person who was to be my Vice-President, allowed himself to be appointed by the Presidency. The Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the party accepted; even when I was still in court as a presidential candidate. That’s why I got out and formed the CPC; when we realised that if we don’t work together, that is the opposition parties, and wrestle power from the PDP, this country is going to sink,” the President recalled.
He thanked the Bauchi State Governor, Mohammed Abubakar for being a good host, and the people of the state for their large turnout wherever he went during the visit.
“Thank you very much for the turnout of the people. I never hired any crowd because I was not in a position to hire crowds. But I am very pleased that people voluntarily turned up, challenged the weather in the heat for hours, just because they wanted to see me and say hello, nagode” he said
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