President Buhari left out a few things in his response to Obasanjo. That’s why we are here. President Muhammadu Buhari’s response to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s ‘special press statement’ was civil, detailed, courteous and respectful, but you had the feeling a few aspects were deliberately left out.We present four glaring omissions from the presidency’s response which arrived through Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed. 1. NepotismObasanjo accused Buhari of ethnicity and tribalism in the following paragraphs:“One is nepotic deployment bordering on clannishness and inability to bring discipline to bear on errant members of his nepotic court. This has grave consequences on performance of his government to the detriment of the nation. “It would appear that national interest was being sacrificed on the altar of nepotic interest. What does one make of a case like that of Maina: collusion, condonation, ineptitude, incompetence, dereliction of responsibility or kinship and friendship on the part of those who should have taken visible and deterrent disciplinary action?”Buhari’s response was silent on this charge.2. Dividing the nationObasanjo said Buhari’s clannishness and nepotism has led to division among Nigerians.Here’s how ‘Baba Iyabo’ puts it: “The second is his poor understanding of the dynamics of internal politics. This has led to wittingly or unwittingly making the nation more divided and inequality has widened and become more pronounced. It also has effect on general national security”. There was no word from Aso Rock concerning this accusation.3. Buhari’s illnessHow much do we know of Buhari’s health status, after he spent over 100 days in the UK last year on a medical vacation?Obasanjo raised this in his letter.“We all thanked God for President Buhari for coming back reasonably hale and hearty and progressing well in his recovery. But whatever may be the state of President Buhari’s health today, he should neither over-push his luck nor over-tax the patience and tolerance of Nigerians for him, no matter what his selfserving, so-called advisers, who would claim that they love him more than God loves him and that without him, there would be no Nigeria, say”. This was a golden opportunity for Buhari to address the state of his health once and for all and put the speculators out of business. But there was no word on the health status of the nation’s number one citizen in the presidency’s response. 4. Blame gameObasanjo accused Buhari of passing the buck or blaming past administrations with the following words;“The third is passing the buck…blaming past governments for it, is to say the least, not accepting one’s own responsibility”.Buhari’s response was silent on this charge.
