Leader of pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, has scolded Special Adviser on Media to President Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Femi Adesina, for shamelessly worshipping his boss, by claiming Nigerians rate Buhari more highly than all leaders in the nation’s history.
Adebanjo while reacting to Adesina’s claims, said on Friday, that Adesina is worse than a sycophant for choosing to exalt Buhari whom he said is not even qualified to be an “ordinary councilor”, over past leaders who built a nation Buhari is now destroying.
Adesina had said; “I am old enough to have seen our colorful and even swashbuckling politicians in action. I have seen the great Obafemi Awolowo. The charismatic Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik of Africa). Shehu Shagari. Amino Kano. M.K.O Abiola. Bashir Tofa, and many others in action.
“But I have not seen anyone with the kind of attraction, magnetic pull, that Muhammadu Buhari has. And that is round the country, north, and south. People swarm round him as bees do to honey,”
However, Adebanjo who spoke with Tribune, described past leaders, including former Premier of Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo; Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, first Nigerian president; former President Shehu Shagari, Alhaji Aminu Kano, late winner of June 12, 1993 election, Chief M.K.O. Abiola, among others, as the pride of the country.
According to the elder statesman, Buhari can never measure up in whatever capacity with these icons, saying that it amounted to sycophancy taken too far for Adesina to compare Buhari to those past leaders whose records of attainments were legendary.
“For Adesina, with his record in journalism to have compared Buhari whose certificate is completely down and whose record of performance has been seen as battered, to the pride of Nigeria, is a disaster.
“For him to compare the man who has been regarded as clueless, visionless, a bigot and one also regarded as the worse of Nigeria’s president to the founding fathers of Nigeria, is sycophancy taken too far,” Adebanjo said.
Speaking further, the Afenifere leader maintained that the comparison was out of place, recalling that the sage, Awolowo, while alive, was seen as possessing the record and capacity to govern any of the Western countries successfully, “unlike someone who is not qualified to be an ordinary councillor but who found himself elected the president of a whole country.”
