C urrent update as
Kassim Afegbua, the spokesperson for
former Head of State, Ibrahim Babangida,
has said that he would have told President
Muhammadu Buhari not to run in the 2019
election if he (Buhari) were his father.
The Babangida’s spokesperson said he
wouldn’t bring out his father to be so
vilified by Nigerians.
Afegbua’s statement, written on behalf of
Ibrahim Babangida, recently stirred the
hornet’s nest.
Asked supposing between now and 2019
President Buhari changed his policies to
address some of the issues he raised in
the statement, Afegbua told Vanguard that
it was time the President left the stage
for the younger generation.
He said, “If President Buhari is my father,
I will graciously advise him. I will say,
‘Daddy, it is time to go home and manage
the rest of your life. It is time to leave the
stage where people will be abusing you’. I
will not bring out my dad to be so vilified
if I were to be his son.
“So, it is not about changing policies, it is
about the fact that this is the age of
retirement, this is the age of having more
time for yourself and family than
committing to public service. When
General Babangida clocked 70, I was one
of those who prevailed on him to quit
partisan politics.
“I told him, ‘Sir, now you are 70, I do not
want any journalist to push you here and
there’. We prepared a statement for him;
at a public event in Abuja, he announced
his retirement from partisan politics. That
is the hallmark of a statesman.
“Now, anybody that wants to run for
election both in APC and PDP go to him in
Minna for advice. So some of us who are
saying that President Buhari should not
seek re-election are more of his friends
than those who are urging him on.
“Now, the President has told us that his
doctors told him to eat more and sleep
more. But this country needs a President
who will be awake when the country is
sleeping.
“Or who will be awake when the country
is awake. India is awake at night, 24
hours because they want to catch up with
lost time. We cannot afford the luxury of
having a President who will sleep when we
have insecurity everywhere, herdsmen
here and there.
“We need a President that has the
capacity to go round and preach peace to
all the ethnic groups. Nigeria is more
sharply divided now more than ever before
and that is where some of us expressed
huge worry and huge danger.
“We now look at ourselves as strangers
occupying the same geographical mass. It
should not be, we should be partners in
progress and we should be able to own
our country.
“We are all Nigerians, we need a
President that can speak on these issues,
understand the intricate logic of the
Nigerian federation, the dynamism of the
processes and, at the end, take a decision
that will be far reaching and that will be
seen to be just and fair to all the ethnic
configurations of the country.
“It is not an accident of history that
President Obasanjo said this government
is nepotistic. There are clear signs; we
have seen actions and inactions.
“We need a President that will speak the
language of peace, we don’t want people
to be cocooned in the Villa and we are
just working with body language; that does
not help us as a country.”