Buhari’s critics responsible for division in Nigeria, Adesina replies Kukah

• Why Nigeria is a failed country, by Bishop Onyia
• APC insists Buhari living up to expectations

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, has said critics of President Muhammadu Buhari are responsible for the division in Nigeria and not the President’s ruling style. According to the media aide, the critics caused division in the country with their mouths.

Adesina’s reaction is coming a day after the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Kukah, heavily criticised Buhari over insecurity, corruption and division in Nigeria.

Kukah, in his Easter message titled ‘To mend a broken nation: The Easter metaphor, had said every aspect of life in the country has been destroyed, while corruption is enthroned.

“With everything literally broken down, our country has become one big emergency national hospital with full occupancy. Our individual hearts are broken. Our family dreams are broken. Homes are broken. Churches, mosques and infrastructure are broken.

Our educational system is broken. Our children’s lives and future are broken. Our politics is broken. Our economy is broken. Our energy system is broken. Our security system is broken. Our roads and rails are broken. Only corruption is alive and well,” the message read in part.

However, Adesina took to his Twitter page yesterday to respond to the criticism of his principal. He said it was surprising that those who are guilty of creating division with mouths in Nigeria are the ones accusing the President of the same crime they committed.

Adesina wrote: “Those who divided Nigeria with their mouths, with evil, unguarded speaking, are the ones now accusing President Buhari. How sad! Their wicked intentions shall not come to pass.”

Adesina had similarly upbraided the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) for asking President Buhari to resign last week for failing to provide security in the country.

He had labeled the Northern elders as “self-seeking individuals who had hoped to get the better of the administration after President Buhari’s electoral victory in 2015.

“The forum is largely made up of angry, bitter, self-seeking individuals, who had thought they would be leading President Buhari by the nose when he emerged in 2015. In fact, key personalities in the group made strenuous efforts to be part of the administration. When they didn’t succeed, they became adversaries.”

But speaking yesterday, the Anglican Bishop of Nike Diocese, Enugu State, Rt. Rev. Christian Onyia, maintained that NEF was right to describe Nigeria as a failed state because the basic components that could enliven a nation have collapsed.

He identified the components as economy, education and security, regretting that none was currently working in the country.

Onyia, who was responding to questions by newsmen during a pre-Synod press conference of the Diocese in his office, noted that the situation in the land needed Christians not just to pray but live out their Christian life to challenge and correct the anomalies.

“I say it and will go to any length to maintain it that Nigeria as a nation has failed, because the three basic things that make a nation survive have collapsed. Our economy has collapsed, our school system has collapsed and there is no security. These are the three things that make a nation either great or fail. I was listening to the news today, the President was asking for more borrowing. You know Nigeria now lives on borrowed money and will continue to borrow,” he said.

MEANWHILE, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has said the President Buhari-led administration is living up to the expectations of Nigerians. APC, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr Felix Morka, said the scathing attacks against the performance of the President were unfounded.

The APC scribe promised to unveil the performance of the administration since 2015 to buttress his claims.

He said: “People simply focus on the distractions, they frame issues in advancing their own self-interest but the fact is that in every sector you look, this party and the leadership of President Buhari has moved us quantum leap forward from where we were in 2015. That’s incontrovertible.

“As the National Publicity Secretary of APC, my job, which I intend to do with a lot of vigour, enthusiasm and candour, is to lead evidence-based arguments and facts to our people so they see it’s not what they think. People are paraphrasing this government in an unfair way.”