*Says to achieve their aim they sponsor mischief to discredit him
*PDP replies him says be afraid of being voted against
*Nigerians angry with you, will resist you 2019, Ondo Lawyer tells PDP
*Says, ‘Our interest not in PMB’s money but in his ongoing change for greater Nigeria, we’ll resist anything with PDP resemblance”
By Kemi Kasumu, General Editor
“Which of the Nigerians have told the PDP that they will vote Buhari out of power in 2019? Okay, may be some Nigerians who are still unhappy that their way of free money hitherto made possible by PDP corruption has been stopped by the President. But the Nigerians who voted for Buhari remain resolute. They are aware that the hardship, although now improving gradually, they have experienced was caused by PDP. So, how can they now vote Buhari out and say they want PDP to come back and return our country to nation of corruption? Impossible. We will removed them in 2015, we will resist their return again in 2019,” he lawyer said.
President Muhammadu Buhari expressed fears Friday that the opposition in the country has stupendous resources at its disposal in preparation for the 2019 elections which the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), may not be able to match.
The President also said that the opposition elements were sponsoring mischief against his government in a bid to discredit him and make him unpopular.
In its immediate reaction however, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said President Buhari should rather be afraid of his rejection by Nigerians who have made up their minds to throw him out as a result of his failure in government.
Members of the PDP, it will be recalled, have been severally accused of keeping looted money converted to hard currencies away from reach to fight their way back to power come 2019.
President Buhari, middle, flanked on his right by Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Boss Mustapha, Special Assistant on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie, and on his left by Chief of Staff to the President, Mallam Abba Kyari and his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu (3rd right), while receiving the Buhari Media Support Group in State House on Friday, 1st June 2018.
President Buhari, in his speech, when the Buhari Media Support Organization (BMSO), paid him a courtesy visit at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, sympathised with those who were supporting his government in view of the increasing opposition against him.
He however appreciated the efforts of members of the group who he said may have lost their friends just for supporting him, stressing that it was a great sacrifice they were making without financial rewards.
According to him, “I don’t think I can thank you enough for your steadfastness under very difficult circumstances. It is not easy to defend this administration and more in particular to defend me.
“But your consistency has given me a lot of confidence. And I know you are doing it as a sacrifice not only in terms of physical or mental but material sacrifice.
“Because as I keep on saying, the opposition elements are now sitting on incredible resources which I am afraid we might not match at all. For that reason the opposition is sponsoring mischief from different angles which in spite of the incumbency of government we cannot absolutely stop.
“It is you who are fighting it and I cannot thank you enough for that. Most of the people I jailed have been given back all that they had taken before I was jailed”.
The President then went on memory lane on the decision he took as a military head of state where he ordered the arrest, detention and prosecution of those who allegedly looted public funds, but also noted that those who were found not guilty were discharged.
He said, “Most of those people who were judged by the various tribunals have been given back what they have taken. I spent 18 months in detention and luckily they did not find anything against me and I was released. But my problem was that there was a journalist from Edo State who wrote an article on me that my mother had to die to save me. This was because I was only released when my mother died to go and bury her. Of course, you know as a Muslim tradition demands that you are buried where you die.
“So, I can appreciate the sacrifices most of you sitting here have made in terms of materialism or even losing some of your friends to continue to support me. I have been here for three years and you have proved to people that you are not here for material things, but out of sacrifice and the strength of the moral courage you have is the strength of the physical, it is the strength of losing the friends you have.
President Buhari chats with the group after the meeting.
“I am sure you are being asked, this support you are busy giving Buhari, what do you get out of it. And that is why I commend your steadfastness and I am very grateful for it. In this country whether people like it or not, they will remain grateful for your courage because you have the courage to do the research, to take the time to reply mischievous representation and we are very grateful.”
In his remarks, the leader of Buhari Media Organization which was formerly known as Buhari Media Support Organization, Austin Braimoh said, the group believed in the government of President Buhari He said the group had in the course of carrying out its assignment used various organs of mass communication to project the administration, stressing that it changed the negative narratives the opposition was dishing out when President Buhari went on medical vacation to London.
In the meantime, the PDP may have incurred the wrath of some Nigerians for what they called its pretending-like-saint attitude telling President to be afraid that Nigerians were prepared to vote him out in 2019.
One of the Nigerians who spoke to The DEFENDER in reaction to PDP’s statement to the President, Barrister Jimoh Saliu said, “Which of the Nigerians have told the PDP that they will vote Buhari out of power in 2019? Okay, may be some Nigerians who are still unhappy that their way of free money hitherto made possible by PDP corruption has been stopped by the President. But the Nigerians who voted for Buhari remain resolute. They are aware that the hardship, although now improving gradually, they have experienced was caused by PDP. So, how can they now vote Buhari out and say they want PDP to come back and return our country to nation of corruption? Impossible. We removed them in 2015, we will resist their return again in 2019.”
Saliu, who is an Akure, Ondo State based legal practitioner, said, “PDP sees nothing good about Buhari. They are hungry and so they have nothing to do than tell bad stories about Buhari so that Nigerians will be instigated against the President. But that is definitely impossible. Let us not deceive ourselves, PDP is an unforgivable political party. Not even whatever political party they transform to or align with will have Nigerians’ votes. Let that be clear you all,” the lawyer said.
