Be educated, Buhari never made violence inciting comment in Zamfara, Keyamo hits back at Atiku

“The Hausa word the President used in Zamfara, which has been taken out of context, is “fitna”. Incidentally all our Hausa language scholars have said the word means different things: it means distress, trial, affliction or temptation. It can also be used to describe rebellion or uprising.”

The Official Spokesperson for the Muhammadu Buhari Presidential Campaign Council, Mr. Festus Keyamo (SAN), has replied the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s Presidential Candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, over a statement he made while campaign in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on Monday, which “mischievously read wrong meaning to comment by President Muhammadu Buhari at the APC presidential campaign in Zamfara State on Sunday.

Atiku had condemned the president’s comment as an incitement to violence but, in replying him, the APC presidential campaign council encouraged the PDP’s presidential candidate to take little time out and be educated about understanding statement in its real sense, even though, according to the council, the President merely joked.

President Buhari, while concluding his remarks in Hausa Language at the Zamfara campaign rally in Gusau, Zamfara State on Sunday, said he was happy that the nation had two rainy seasons that enabled farmers to make good yield last farming year.

He then prayed for another fruitful rainy season this year.

He said: “What I actually want is for everyone to feed well and as for those who want to continue with their “fitna”, (they) can go ahead”.

The DEFENDER’s investigations amidst this report collation revealed that understanding language has to do largely with the context of use.  But Atiku, equally Hausa/Fulani like Buhari, it was learned, went out of the way for politicking purposes, and attempted to discredit the President as inciting Nigerian people to violence with the comment.

Our investigations recalled it was the same way they tagged Buhari with a statement in the past bothering on blood thereby blaming him for 2011 elections wide violence that greeted the controversial victory of PDP’s Goodluck Ebele Jonathan at the poll.

It was however revealed to all in the build up to the 2015 elections, when the PDP wanted to use the same concocted violence inciting comment against his presidential aspiration as APC’s presidential candidate, that the truth finally came out that the ‘blood’ comment was actually made by a PDP chieftain which he was said to have made during an internal fight within the PDP over Jonathan’s decision to stick his head into the 2011 contest thereby denying the North its eight years tenure follow President Umar Musa Yar’Adua’s death.

The DEFENDER further confirms, at a point take Jonathan’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Rueben Abati to court for dedicating one of his column article in The Guardian to linking the 2011 violence and the ‘blood’ made by the PDP’s chieftain with Buhari, that General Buhari at that time had to sue Abati to court only to soft pedal on the pleas of the then President Jonathan for out-of-court settlement. That finally sealed the mischievous character damage that was done against the person of President Buhari by the PDP.

The latest of such “mischievous” claims coming now also from PDP presidential candidate, many said, now points to Atiku as author of such dangerous, name killing rumours in the past.

In the fresh such allegation, candidate of the major opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, speaking in Port Harcourt, Rivers State on Monday, said the comment by Mr Buhari was “unpresidential”.

But the APC’s presidential campaign council pushed it back at him, saying he lied.

In a statement on Tuesday, the spokesperson of the Buhari campaign council, Mr. Festus Keyamo (SAN), said typical of the Atiku campaign, “they have continued in their favourite pastime of peddling falsehood, scaremongering and misinformation”.

Keyamo said the comment by Mr Abubakar accusing the president of promoting violence was false.

“The Hausa word the President used in Zamfara, which has been taken out of context, is “fitna”.

“Incidentally all our Hausa language scholars have said the word means different things: it means distress, trial, affliction or temptation. It can also be used to describe rebellion or uprising.

“In this case, President Buhari was actually weighing in on the joke told very often of recent in the North that due to the rice boom, farmers have embarked on pilgrimage and the marrying of more wives.

“So, what the President meant was actually a joke deliberately taken out of context: he simply told the crowd to ensure they eat very well because of the rice boom before they can contemplate giving in to those temptations,” Mr Keyamo said.

The campaign spokesperson said even in some private meetings with the campaign team, President Buhari has always commented on this joke.

“Sadly, out of desperation, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has decided to peddle falsehood.

“We urge Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to realize that it is God Almighty that gives power and takes power. He should not use his palpable desperation to return to power (in order to sell Nigeria to his “friends” and to make them rich) to set this nation ablaze by outright falsehood,” Mr Keyamo said.