Imported User:
Both the Presidency and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday, took a swipe at Gen. Muhammadu Buhari over comments he made in the media, predicting bloodshed in 2015.
President Goodluck Jonathan while firing back at the retired army general and presidential candidate of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), described the former head of state as a bad loser who has reduced himself to a regional leader.
The president said the comments were as sad as they were unfortunate.
According to President Jonathan: “Such a reaction from Buhari is not totally unexpected since he has become a serial election loser who has never taken his past election defeats graciously even when such elections were generally acknowledged to be free and fair”.
Gen Buhari had on Monday reportedly predicted bloodshed in 2015 and also labelled the Jonathan-led government as “the biggest Boko Haram”.
The president who spoke through his special adviser on media and publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, said it was ironical that Gen. Buhari accused him of not being a listening president when, already, Buhari’s statement that, “If what happened in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood,” depicted the former head of state as one who does not listen.
Denying vehemently that Jonathan-led government was not Boko Haram, the president’s statement added: “Boko Haram means Western Education is sin. That being the case, one wonders how a government that devoted the largest sectoral allocation in the 2012 budget to education could be said to be Boko Haram.
“He (Buhari) has obviously refused to listen to the Nigerian people, the European Union, the Commonwealth Monitoring Group, the African Union and a multitude of independent electoral monitors who testified that the 2011 elections were free and fair and ‘the best elections since Nigeria returned to civil rule’.”
“Still on the issue of Boko Haram, we wonder what locus a man whose party’s secretary general, Buba Galadima, told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in December, 2010, that the federal government is underestimating the support base of Boko Haram, has to accuse a government that has been threatened on camera by the leaders of Boko Haram of itself being Boko Haram?
The PDP in a statement noted that Gen. Buhari, has through his utterances shown that he was responsible for the over 200 deaths recorded in the post election crisis which erupted after the 2011 poll.
It further described the remarks made yesterday by General Buhari, as “inciting people to take the law into their hands; inciting Nigerians to slaughter fellow Nigerians, as he did sequel to the 2011 general elections.”
Gen. Buhari, had on Monday, while playing host to party faithful from Niger State at his Kaduna residence called for a bloody revolution if the elections of 2015 were rigged.
Also reacting to Buhari’s statement, national publicity secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh said, “We need to remind ourselves that on April 21, 2012, Buhari was reported in the media as predicting a bloody revolution in 2015. The reports in the national dailies today quoting the same retired general as repeating that blood will flow in 2015 is another build-up to Buhari’s relish of funeral train.”
Continuing, Metuh stressed: “It is unfortunate that at this time of grave security challenge while Nigerians are burying their dead and counting their losses, Gen. Buhari, who wants to rule them, is further inflaming the orgy of violence. What a blood thirsty leader is Buhari?”
