In response to the call for resignation of President Muhammadu by the Northern Elders Forum over insecurity, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, has blasted the forum, saying the criticism was borne out of frustration since they could not be part of the administration.
This is coming after Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant, Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, accused “sponsored saboteurs” of planning to destroy the legacy of the president.
In an article titled ‘Hiding under the umbrella of insecurity’, Adesina said the complaint emanated from “self-seeking individuals” and embittered persons.
He wrote, “The point of interest today is the hackneyed calls on President Buhari to resign over the country’s security challenges, the latest coming from a so-called Northern Elders Forum (NEF), a group I’d once described as “Generals without troops.”
“The Forum is largely made of angry, bitter, self-seeking individuals, who had thought they would be leading President Buhari by the nose when he emerged in 2015. In fact, key personalities in the group made strenuous efforts to be part of the administration. When they didn’t succeed, they became adversaries.
“It is on record that NEF had always opposed the Buhari administration since its gambit failed, and before the 2019 presidential election, it openly endorsed Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party as next President.
“And that completely vitiates whatever position the Forum adopts today. It is partisan, bilious, by no means neutral. It is from a self-serving standpoint.”
While comparing Nigeria with the US, the spokesman stated, “Between 2009 and 2022, there were at least 271 mass shootings in United States of America, resulting in 1,518 people killed, and 980 wounded. Just this week, there has been the Brooklyn Subway Shooting, in which at least 23 people were critically injured.
“In all these, did you hear calls for the resignation of any American President? It is on record that last year was the deadliest in a decade, in terms of mass shootings. Have you heard of calls for the resignation of President Joe Biden by a caterwauling band? No.”
He therefore said human lives across the world should be ”taken wantonly”, not the way individuals, groups, organisations and political parties “who had been given bloody noses at the polls, are now using the smokescreen of insecurity to vent their spleen”.