New Telegraph

Comparing Buhari to Zik, Awo, tantamount to comparing Idi Amin to Winston Churchill – Ohanaeze

 

Emmanuel Ifeanyi, Aba

Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide on Saturday blasted the Presidency spokesman, Femi Adesina for comparing President Muhammad Buhari to Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and other Nigerian heroes.

Ohanaeze said Adesina’s comparison is not only unfortunate and embarrassing but is tantamount to comparing the late Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin Dada to Britain’s war time hero, Winston Churchill.

The Apex Igbo sociocultural group described Azikiwe and Awolowo as progenitors of Nigeria loved by all urging Adesina to revisit his history books and stop making the embarrassing mistake of comparing Buhari who has failed to move Nigeria in the right direction to heroes like Azikiwe and Awolowo.

New Telegraph reports that Adesina had in an article recently published and entitled: ‘The Essential Buhari: VP Osinbajo got it!’, said he has not seen any Nigerian leader that has a popular appeal like Buhari.

The Presidency spokesperson said Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo was right to have described Buhari as “the most popular Nigerian politician that we ever had in this generation”.

In the words of Adesina: “Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo is an honest man. Whatever he tells you, please take it serious.

“When he said Buhari was possibly Nigeria’s most popular politician that we have had in generations, I believe it, not just by the hearing of the ear, but because my eyes have seen it.

“I am old enough to have seen our colourful and even swashbuckling politicians in action. I have seen the great Obafemi Awolowo. The charismatic Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik of Africa). Shehu Shagari. Aminu 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 around him as bees do to honey.

“I have been around the country with the President. I have also been to several countries of the world with him. I have not seen any other Nigerian leader, past or present, with his kind of allure, pull, fascination, magnetism.”

But reacting to Adesina’s comment, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, Secretary-General Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, said that the whole world idolizes the immeasurable contributions and legacies left behind by Azikwe, Awolowo, and others who worked with uncommon patriotism and selflessly that built a viable nation that functions.

Isiguzoro told Adesina that Azikwe, Awolowo, and others who had paid their dues for the country without resorting to nepotism, foreign loans, abuse of power and ineptitude leadership as witnessed by Nigerians since 2015, should be accorded with some respect.

The Ohanaeze Secretary, however, said that Buhari could only be greater than Azikiwe and Awolowo in bad leadership and not anything that concerns governance, economy and acceptance by the people and the international community.

Speaking in a sarcastic tone, Isiguzoro said: “Yes, Femi Adesina was right because Buhari is greater than Azikwe and Awolowo. After all, under his boss, Nigeria entered into recession twice, under Buhari Nigeria became the world’s headquarters of poverty.

“Unlike Azikwe and Awolowo that was fascinated with issues of good quality policies that boosted the standards of living of Nigerians in the early ’60s, which nourished the unity of the country and offered free education to the southwest, Buhari is surrounded by praise troubadours that helplessly watched Nigeria divided along ethnic and religious lines.”

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