No pressure on Buhari to drop second term bid – Presidency

The office of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday denied claims that he is being pressured to shelve his intent to run for the second term in office from the international community.

A national daily on Tuesday published a major story that Buhari was under pressure to change his plan of seeking re-election.

“It is necessary to respond to a tendentious story published today as the cover choice by Daily Independent Newspaper,” President Buhari’s media aide Femi Adesina said in a statement.

“Under the headline, ‘Pressure mounts on Buhari not to seek re-election,’ the fiction parading as news claims that foreign powers, including the European Union, United States of America, United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia, are putting pressure on President Buhari not to seek re-election, due to some concocted reasons,”

Adesina expressed dissapointment in the media report, saying the President’s intent to run for second term is held in high regard in the countries mentioned.

“We thought fake news was the sole preserve of the social media in this season. Alas, a traditional medium has caught the bug. Obviously, the author of the story just got a brain wave, or got procured by anti-democratic elements, and then penned the mischief,”

“If there are quarters in which President Buhari is held in very high esteem, and the work he is doing for Nigeria highly lauded, it is in the countries mentioned. Some of them are equally bastions of democracy, and will not interfere in the democratic affairs of a sovereign country. The newspaper should simply tell its story to the marines,”

He alleged that the media report was sponsored strategy by the Buhari’s opponents to dissuade his ambition for second term.

“President Buhari is not a flippant or frivolous individual He gave deep thought to the prospect, before announcing his bid for a second term in office. It is only those who fear that their goose would be cooked, if they meet with him at the polls, that are trying to dissuade him from running by all means, including sponsored newspaper stories,” Adesina said.