Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari’s meeting with national leader of the All Progressive Congress (APC) Bola Tinubu and the former APC interim national chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, ended with both leaders not speaking to State House Correspondents.
Both leaders arrived the Presidential Villa at 3:50pm and left the premises via the president’s official residence at 4:50pm.
Although the meeting came barely three hours after former President Olusegun Obasanjo penned an open letter to Buhari, Tinubu’s Media Office said the duo’s visit to the villa was scheduled last week.
“President Buhari periodically schedules talks with Asiwaju Tinubu and Baba Akande, as he does with other Nigerians and APC figures, to discuss substantive issues pertaining to the governance of the country and matters concerning the party. This visit was one such meeting. As such, the meeting had nothing to do with the statement of former President Obasanjo. It is totally unconnected. At the time of the meeting, Asiwaju Tinubu and Baba Akande were even unaware that president Obasanjo had released his statement.”
Meanwhile the Presidency has kept mute over Obasanjo’s letter to Buhari, wherein he asked him not to run in 2019.
When contacted, Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu said: “We will not react for now.”
Mixed reactions have continued to trail Obasanjo’s letter.
The Action Democratic Party (ADP) said Obasanjo has set the ball rolling for a new Nigeria with his letter to Buhari’s. The party also said the letter has set the stage for Buhari’s defeat, if he ignores Obasanjo’s advice. ADP National Secretary, Dr. James Okoroma told Daily Sun in Abuja that the damage caused by Buhari’s government is enormous.
“Buhari cannot be credited with any achievement in any sector: security, education, economy, national cohesion and infrastructural development. Never have we been as divided as we are today.”
In his reaction, former national secretary of Labour Party, Kayode Ajulo, scored Buhari’s administration on its three cardinal campaign issues of security, anti-corruption and job-creation but said that was not enough for “Obasanjo to think that Nigeria is a Banana Republic where one man just decree for others. Obasanjo throws around such words as ‘needful’ and ‘honour,’ making the distinct mistake of not taking cognisance of a fundamental right in law, available to president Buhari, to wit, the right to stand in for an election with all criteria set by law duly met.”
But, in a statement by Deputy Director General (Media, Communications, Publicity), Mallam Naseer Kura, the Nigeria Intervention Movement (NIM) praised Obasanjo for backing a Coalition for Nigeria; a political Third Force Movement that will rescue the country in 2019.
“While endorsing and applauding OBJ historic statement on the way forward for Nigeria, in the march towards the 2019, NIM wishes to clearly state its resolve to embrace the strategic counsel contained in the elder statesman’s treatise on how the emergent movement can rally and work with other movements in building a major coalition for Nigeria, to save Nigerians from an inert political leadership.”