Your suspicion of Buhari over Benue Assembly saga needless, Presidency replies opposition

By Bashir Adefaka and Kehinde Bashir

“President Buhari will always stand by all that is noble and fair, and will reject attempts to drag him into infamy. People who stoke fires by deliberate acts of omission or commission, and then summon the President to come and put it out will find that this President will be guided by the Constitution at all times, no matter the attempt to entangle him in unwarranted controversies,” Femi Adesina said.

The Presidency, in terse response to comments trying to link or drag President Muhammadu Buhari into the current crisis rocking the Benue State House of Assembly, has told owners of such comments to look elsewhere as, according to it, they have no justifications for such claims.

The nation’s topmost corridor of powers in a statement Tuesday, titled, “Benue Assembly Saga: No need for paranoia about President Buhari” and signed by Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Chief Femi Adesina, found it difficult to see where President Buhari, who is currently attending to matters of Nigerian national development and relevance among other sister African nations, has link with what it described as unfolding drama between the executive and the legislature in Benue State.

It spoke just as a respondent cautioned Ortom and his PDP colleagues against insulting the office of the President of the country by dragging President Buhari into petty politicking or other trivial issues affecting his state, asking, “What is Ortom governor and chief security officer and taking security votes for if at all times he cannot sit down to solve or face petty cases except he drags the name of President Buhari into it?

“Governor Ambode of Lagos and Governor Lalong of Plateau have solved many security issues in the respective states without whipping sentiments against the President.  What manner of governor is Ortom and who are those youths of Benue that we are being told are backing him in this? Are they part of Nigerian youths who Buhari is fight tooth and nail to rescue from the destroyers of their future and hand back their country as its rightful owners?” He said.

Speaking in the Presidency’s statement, Chief Adesina said President Buhari will never be part of any unconstitutional act, adding that “any attempt to link the President with the inglorious past, when minority number of lawmakers impeached governors, will not stick. It will simply be like water off the duck’s back. Those with open minds know this, but those who cavil would rather source everything untoward to the President. It is murky ground in which they are now marooned, as fallout of their resistance to change in the country.”

He said berated the opposition over their drag of the President to their predicament saying, “When it suits them, they preach separation of powers and true federalism, and in another breath, they call on the President to interfere brazenly in affairs at state level.”

The statement read in full:

“Even while attending the ECOWAS/ECCAS Summit in Togo, strident attempts were being made to drag President Muhammadu Buhari into the unfolding drama between the executive and the legislature in Benue State.

“Statements have been issued by different interest groups, insinuating that the President may have a hand in the development in Benue. This is paranoia at its worst, coming from people who have wittingly positioned themselves against the clean-up of the country, and the way we do things. They prefer business as usual.

“President Buhari will never be part of any unconstitutional act, and any attempt to link him with the inglorious past, when minority number of lawmakers impeached governors, will not stick. It will simply be like water off the duck’s back. Those with open minds know this, but those who cavil would rather source everything untoward to the President. It is murky ground in which they are now marooned, as fallout of their resistance to change in the country.

“When it suits them, they preach separation of powers and true federalism, and in another breath, they call on the President to interfere brazenly in affairs at state level.

“President Buhari will always stand by all that is noble and fair, and will reject attempts to drag him into infamy. People who stoke fires by deliberate acts of omission or commission, and then summon the President to come and put it out will find that this President will be guided by the Constitution at all times, no matter the attempt to entangle him in unwarranted controversies.”