By Abraham Olatokunbo
The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has said that contrary to the position of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF’s) spokesman Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, President Muhammadu Buhari has not failed in his duty to Nigerians.
BMO said in a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke that the retired Permanent Secretary should not be taken seriously because he has never been known to be objective on issues concerning the Buhari administration and the All Progressives Congress (APC).
“We are not surprised that Dr Baba-Ahmed has again resorted to verbal attacks on the person of the President under the guise of presenting an unbiased assessment in the midst of political hustings for the 2023 elections.
“However, we want to advise him and his NEF colleagues to be brave enough to endorse or announce their candidate for the 2023 Presidential election, rather than a resort to their all-too-familiar cheap politicking.
“Baba-Ahmed’s comments are largely a refrain of what he and his ilk had been repeating annually since he lost out in the power play in APC, regardless of what the Buhari administration had been doing to improve on what he met in 2015.
“We make bold to say that only a thoroughly biased individual, as well as an opposition figure, which Hakeem Baba-Ahmed is, would pretend not to notice general improvements in several sectors of the economy, including those that he mentioned in his media interaction.
“We wonder what parameters Baba-Ahmed used to conclude that the North and the entire country was worst off under Buhari, when it is common knowledge that Nigeria had 112m people living under the poverty threshold in 2012”, it added.
BMO noted that President Buhari has done far more with little than previous administrations to improve on what he met on assuming office in 2015.
“As much as we acknowledge Baba-Ahmed as a brilliant individual, we are struggling to see any form of brilliance in his summation of the Buhari administration as a failure.
“We know that while he was still in APC he always spoke highly of the President and his performance in office which included the manner the administration had been handling the Boko Haram insurgency.
“We want to remind him that this was because of the manner the government had progressively improved the operational capabilities of the armed forces through the acquisition of new weaponry and platforms.
“On the President’s watch, the Police now have an annual recruitment target of 10,000 new recruits under a community policing arrangement which had never been seen before in Nigeria, but which Baba-Ahmed is pretending not to notice.
“We also invite Baba-Ahmed and other arm-chair critics to note how a nationwide rail network is taking shape in Nigeria with three rail routes fully functional, including the Itakpe-Warri line that was completed after being abandoned for 33 years, yet NEF believes that the country is worse off under Buhari”.
BMO urged Nigerians especially Northerners to ignore efforts by Baba-Ahmed to whip up unnecessary sentiments against President Buhari.
