‘Talk To Us, My Foot!, Obasanjo Would Have Said To Those Attacking Buhari Over Presidential Chat’ – Adesina

Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, says former President Olusegun Obasanjo would not have tolerated attack on his person because of presidential chat unlike his boss, President Muhammadu Buhari, who will not upbraid anyone for that.

Adesina stated this in his recent article titled, ‘If you can’t take blows brother, don’t throw blows’, which he posted on his Facebook page.

According to him, if it were former President Olusegun Obasanjo that was still in power, he would not have taken all the diatribe being poured at President Buhari by some Nigerians.

Adesina who penned the article to highlight scenario of a programme on 95.1 Nigeria Info FM Abuja, a station which he said has become “the bastion for some angry Nigerians, the type that saw nothing good in government, and who took delight in negative criticisms”.

“Now, this narrative of ‘he must talk to us’ is a common one in the country. I’d responded to it more times than I could remember. But what made it a bit irksome last week was the fact that the President had just made three major national broadcasts over the previous four weeks. And here was a man commanding him to ‘come and talk to us’ once again.

“I explained that it was not the President’s style to chirrup like a cockatoo. He is a man of few words, who preferred action to words. I even pleaded that we should understand the nature of the man we have elected to lead us, and let him do the work.

“You know what? If it was former President Olusegun Obasanjo that had come under the ‘you must talk to us’ barrage like that, and on live television, he would have first cleared his throat noisily, adjusted himself in his seat, and then bellowed: ‘And who are you, that I must talk to you? I say who the hell are you?

“Who is your father? Who is your father’s father that you are commanding me to talk to you? Were you born when we fought a civil war to keep this country together? Where was your father when I received the instrument of surrender from the Biafra Forces? Don’t come here and tell me nonsense. Talk to us, my foot!

“But President Buhari would not upbraid anyone like that. He rather keeps his peace. And some people have now taken liberty for license, till they begin to sound like broken records. Yes, no apologies. That’s how they sound.

“The fact that you have voted a man into office is not carte blanche for you to lead the man around by the nose. A leader worth his salt would not even submit himself to such cavalier treatment. Definitely not President Buhari. I made that point clear on the programme”, he wrote.