Muhammadu Always Defiantly Defies Buhari

A level of insolence never before seen in our culture is unfolding in the political spectrum. It is a very well known fact that every ruiner of the collective destiny has die-hard fans who praise them in every and all situations. Those at the receiving end always cry foul, but as they say in Kano, babu damuwa , we are unfazed!

Among contemporary ruiners , none has achieved the tempo of the notoriety of Muhammadu Buhari. Let us pray none would overtake him. President Buhari’s soaring popularity is akin to that of Donald Trump who boasted three years ago that he could shoot people and still not lose voters. Mai Gaskiya could run down people with a trailer and not lose his popularity. Alhamdullilah!

While intemperate hecklers have been brought to their knees by Sai Babarians , others are being charged with treason for ‘crimes’ amount no less to insolence. One chap has been defying the president with impunity. Let’s call him Muhammadu. Of all the president’s men, Muhammadu is Buhari’s favourite.

In the early days of Buhari’s first term, Muhammadu was nominated and sworn in as Buhari’s petroleum minister without legislative approval. He has held that position till date, as Saint Timipre Silva would testify.

Muhammadu has gained an uncanny notoriety for disrespecting every presidential order. Before Buhari became president, census figures recorded Muhammadu as a talaka , a mere pauper. He could not afford to pay the cost of the contest from his savings and using Buhari as cover, Muhammadu got poor support to pay nomination fees. Among those suckered into the scam was a toddler who handed over her feeding allowance to Buhari’s running mate, former Yemi Osinbade. A widow gave her all, a widow’s mite of N1,000 she was saving for rainy days. All the while Muhammadu had children in schools overseas.

In 2016, Buhari announced a government ban on foreign students fee payment through the Central Bank. He simply told a reporter – we can’t just afford it, that is the true situation we are in. When the reporter pointed Muhammadu’s duplicity to Buhari, the president proudly told him ‘“Yes I have children abroad because I can afford it.” At the time Prince Yusuf’s sister, Muhammadu’s daughter, Zahra was studying microbiology at the University of Surrey.

While candidate Muhammadu was poor, President Buhari is rich. Nobody should tell the young donor that she had been scammed. The lady of the widow’s mite is now late. It was Muhammadu with 130 gay cows, Buhari’s cows are now 230 – still forbidden to have twins. Muhammadu was the despondent candidate whose chattels were thrown out of his campaign base by his Abuja landlord; Buhari had houses in Abuja, Kano and Daura built on bank loans of course.

The Cable has fact-checked and determined that Buhari never promised not to make health tourism abroad. That must have been Muhammadu’s dream. Muhammadu’s wife, Aisha alleged that in spite of huge budgetary provisions, Aso Clinic lacked basic analgesics to treat a headache . Daily Trust has exclusively reported that the situation was yet to change.

Truth is, Buhari would never go abroad for medical treatment, he was the consummate patriot who prevented Andrew from checking out saying – Nigeria belongs to all of us, we shall stay here and salvage it together. Muhammadu’s wife recently confirmed that he’s been patronising London doctors for 27 years and counting. If only we had known! A man without shoes once plunged us into the abyss, Buhari was supposed to rescue us.

Buhari’s penultimate IG, Ibrahim Idris received a presidential order to move police operations to Makurdi after Muhamadu’s fellow herdsmen were accused of slaughtering innocent citizens. He saluted the C-in-C, left the villa with sirens blaring but on the way to Makurdi, Idris found a huge tree with the inscription – Lafia, so he camped there. When Buhari was told that an appointee of his had disobeyed lawful order, he did nothing! It would have been unthinkable in 1985!

Only weeks ago, shortly after photocopying and presenting the 2019 budget for 2020, President Buhari banned his ministers and heads of parastatals from foreign travels until they have defended their proposals. Last Monday, Muhammadu, the petroleum minister accompanied President Buhari to Sochi, Russia for the Russo-African summit without defending his budgetary proposal.

Our beloved President Buhari should never allow such insolence. It is such a double standard that made people conclude that the man running the show in Aso Rock is Jubril el-Sudani. The people know that Buhari’s gom’ment would not tolerate indiscipline. At the same time, a man never hates his body double; an actor never disrespects his doppelganger.

Reports of a cabal in the villa are overrated, but President Buhari must rein in Muhammadu before everybody else treats his instructions with levity. Buhari would never have kept quiet watching the current IG appropriating spots for Nasarawa. He’d have declared it an act of kwarrupshon . He would not have kept quiet when sinnate leaders stole slots in FIRS recruitments. He would have raised dust. We know that Buhari has integrity but Muhammadu; he just doesn’t give a damn – and that is just not good.