The spokesperson to former President Muhammadu Buhari, Garba Shehu, on Wednesday hit out at a columnist, Sonala Olumhense, over attacks on the immediate past ruler even after leaving office.

Shehu in a statement on X (formerly Twitter) said Olumhense who was dedicated to bashing Buhari for the eight years in office as president needs to get his facts right.

“Never before have attacks on any Nigerian Head of State been so continuous or chillingly violent than in the weekly syndicated column wired from America by Sonala Olumhense,” he said.

Shehu stated that as a student, he read Olumhense’s weekly column in the Guardian newspaper with relish, this was until he migrated to America with its gleaming malls and opulent high-rises and since then, things were never quite normal with his essays.

“This gentleman writes week after week- not discussing climate change, hunger, war or any contemporary challenges- attacking Presidents, even after they have left office, and he turns around to say Buhari is seeking attention,” Shehu said.

“No, Mr Solana, you are the attention seeker and the sin on the part of President Buhari is that he simply ignored you in all your rants and tantrums throughout his years in office.

“The day he took a ride on the Buhari-made Lagos-Ibadan train with the former Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, he wrote a piece laced with cheer and some optimism.

“But before you could shout “hallelujah!” Sonala made sure he had the bile inherent in his pen injected into what would have been a happy piece after so long awhile. It is as if anger is the engine of his column,” Shehu added.

Shehu further said that in the latest column Olumhense wrote on Sunday to, as usual seek to delegitimize Buhari, he cited a report in an unrecognisable junk newspaper that once wrote an unsubstantiated article alleging the ownership of an Abuja estate.

He pointed out that the columnist said since the report was unchallenged by the Presidency, it must be true but that no one who has an inkling of knowledge of the essential Buhari would have taken this report seriously.

According to Shehu, more is expected of someone as Sonala, very high on Journalistic ranks: provide the evidence. Facts are the stuff of good journalism.

He stated that the second thing the writer did to delegitimize was to dwell on the stolen funds from the Gloval Vaccine Alliance (GAVI), an incident that happened 2014-2015, uncovered and dealt with by the Buhari administration when it came into office in 2015.

“Contrary to what he wrote, a lot was done to win back the confidence of the donors and for which he should have given credit to President Buhari,” he said.

Shehu also said that Olumhense is free to ask questions about some of these issues before using his column to make unfounded claims or criticisms against Buhari.
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