Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, has had his hands full in the herculean task of having to defend his principal, for what has now become a faux pas too many. The President, with a dramatic tinge, recently declared his rerun bid, and then jetted out to London to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and then, savour some vacation.
While 75-year-old President Buhari has been controversial over one issue or the other, his decision to rule the country for another four years has now put him in the eye of the storm.
Adesina: I have sat in different meetings with different groups involving the President and the reason all of them came was that they wanted him to run for a second term in office. These calls have been coming over a year ago and the President didn’t say a word
The president’s decision to re-contest the 2019 election has quite expectedly been greeted with mixed reactions. In the wake of the second term ambition, he has come under severe criticisms and received unprecedented knocks in many quarters. In the process, several other pertinent issues have cropped up.
To restore confidence, brighten the president’s chances at the poll and provide a leeway for a successful outing in the 2019 general election, Adesina, has not only done much to justify and defend the president’s actions and inactions, he has also taken on those who take to the social media to lampoon the Buhari administration.
One of the contentious issues, which dominated the social media, last week, is the fact that President Buhari had once said that he would be doing a single term of four years in office, if elected. There is also the raging controversy about whether it was auspicious for the President to have declared his interest in another term, at the time he did. Many have argued that it would tell overtly on governance as it was a clarion call on politicians in the government to begin real politicking. Again, the vexed issue of whether the President deserves a second term in office or not, considering the perceived under-performance of his administration in over three years, resurged.
Adesina, while dispelling these arguments as irrelevant and immaterial, said President Buhari had been buffeted with pleas from Nigerians begging him to go for another term, for the past one year, before deciding to throw his hat into the ring.
“I have sat in different meetings with different groups involving the President and the reason all of them came was that they wanted him to run for a second term in office. These calls have been coming over a year ago and the President didn’t say a word. This reinforced my position that for him, it is not a do-or die-affair; it is just a matter of serving the country,” he said.
On the issue of President Buhari’s earlier stance that he would be seeking only a single term of four years in office if elected, the media aide said such a submission was no longer tenable and binding, owing to changes in circumstances.
He maintained that Buhari made that disclosure when he was seeking election in 2011, but he didn’t succeed at the polls, adding that now that the victory came at the 2015 poll, it will be unwise and unreasonable for anyone to expect a statement made at the heat of 2011 poll to remain tenable and binding on the President.
Adesina stated that the President may be re-elected on his achievements in security, his efforts at reviving the economy and the successes recorded in the fight against corruption. “There are certain things that the President had set out to do and they come up under three broad umbrella. One is security, two is fighting corruption and the third is revamping the economy; and I have said it, that in all three areas, there have been successes. The willfully blind will never see, even if you put the thing right in front of his eyes. We are not talking to the willfully blind or deaf.
But this line of argument has drawn the ire of Akin Osuntokun, former Political Adviser to former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Osuntokun is the spokesman of Coalition for Nigeria Movement, a body floated by Obasanjo in the wake of a stinker he wrote to Buhari.
He saw Adesina’s submissions on his principal as a complete balderdash and a play to the gallery, saying as for him, President Buhari’s purported declaration to run for a second term in office is still a mere speculation. Osuntokun said that when the President has the courage to confirm the speculation, he will have tell Nigerians what he has done to merit a second term in office.
“The President will be required to clearly enunciate the records on which he wants to run for a second term. He will have to clarify how his incumbency and the APC government have proved to be a better alternative to the PDP and former President Goodluck Jonathan with whom they have steadfastly compare record of failures-not achievements,” he quipped.
He also revealed that when the President eventually has the courage to confirm his declaration to re-contest the 2019 general election, he would be reminded how a non-partisan, credible international organisation-Transparency International-rated his government’s record on corruption as worse than his much-maligned predecessor.
Osuntokun: Above all, we will encourage him that at a more realistic estimated age of 80 years or above, he should heed the charitable advice of his doctor to return to Daura, not later than May 29, 2019 to eat more and sleep more. The President publicly confessed that old age is a drag and limitation on his capacity to function
Osuntokun also posited that at such auspice time, the nation will acknowledge and accept that Buhari has obviously done his best but that his best was glaringly and demonstrably below
par.
“Above all, we will encourage him that at a more realistic estimated age of 80 years or above, he should heed the charitable advice of his doctor to return to Daura, not later than May 29, 2019 to eat more and sleep more. The President publicly confessed that old age is a drag and limitation on his capacity to function. How does this old age debility factor support his second term?” He asked.
