Udora Orizu in Abuja
The Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, yesterday said President Muhammadu Buhari has continuously blamed past presidents for challenges faced by the country but doesn’t want to be blamed for his own faults.
Abaribe stated this during a pre-recorded interview regarding Buhari’s Independence Day speech on ‘The Signature Show’, a programme on AIT channel on Sunday.
Responding to a question on the notion by many Nigerians that Buhari means well for this country except that some people somewhere are creating distractions and challenges for him, Abaribe opined that what happens is that there’s an overwhelming attitude of trying to shield Buhari away from his own faults.
He said Buhari continues to blame other presidents, “but when it comes to himself, he still blames other people and not himself.
“Anything that happens is him, otherwise, why are you president? I had asked this question on the floor of the Senate, that you blame all manners of people yet you don’t blame him, every other president was blamed. Even he himself continues blaming other presidents, but when it comes to him, he still blames other people and not himself.
‘’Those who want to be rosy-eyed and listen to all those kind of platitude can do so. When we hired him to do this job, we hired him to do a job for us, keep this country one, develop us, help us to be able to forge ahead as a nation, and then you come in and end up destroying the country’s base to the extent that even the vice president has admitted that there are so many fault lines that may lead to the breakup of the country if we are not careful. And you still turn around and say it’s not his fault, whose fault is it then. There’s a one symbol for the country, and if that symbol is not able to do the job then he must also take the blame for whatever problems and faults we have.’’
In response to the president’s statement that the underlying cause of most of the problems we’re faced as a country is artificially contrived, the Senate Minority Leader said the president is indicting himself, “and if he says they were artificially contrived then he is the chief culprit of artificially contriving everything that has led the country to where it is.”
According to Abaribe, ‘’We can quote the president when he wasn’t the president-when he said don’t vote for anybody who is not a Muslim, you’ve to vote for people who are your own people. That’s an artificial thing he imposed on himself. We can quote him verbatim on all the things that he now turns around to say are done by others. So I will say we have heard so many speeches by the president. We will re-watch your actions and it’s your actions that will make us to believe whether you’re sincere or not. Obviously there’s no sincerity behind the words that are being said today.’’
When asked of his opinion on the statement by the president that his optimism is anchored on peaceful planning for an open consultation and harmonious cooperation with different groups which culminated in Nigeria emerging as a country, Abaribe said open consultation does not exist here and that it is a mere play on words to assuage those who still have the belief that this government can still do anything.
