The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina has fired back at Buhari’s critics over his principal’s refusal to visit the Benue State’s Agatu community.
In his defense, the Presidential Aide noted that the President did not visit victims of Boko Haram insurgents neither did he grant preferential treatment to victims of herdsmen massacre, he added that the President already reacted to the issues in a statement.
Adding further that his principal, Buhari was not Talkative, Femi Adesina said; “A section of this country wants a talkative president and it doesn’t work that way. When the Agatu thing happened, we issued a statement – a statement in which President Buhari said he would ask for briefings, and it would be looked into,”
He continued while being interviewed on The Osasu Show that; “Some people kept saying Agatu, Agatu, he has not spoken, and I asked myself, what else would he say after the statement that has been issued.
“We are used to the style of the last administration in which whenever anything happens, the president would go there. But do you know that before that last president left, that style had begun to backfire.
“They had begun to say, every day he would go there, he would go here, what comes out of it?”
During the interview, the Presidential Aide when reminded that the president was disconnected from the people who may be in need of empathy said: “It’s not true. It’s a perception, and those who have the perception, there’s nothing you’d do that will satisfy them.
“When anything happens and the presidency has spoken on it, anybody who wants to remain deaf to it, there’s then nothing that can be done.”
Adesina, on the former president Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to victims of Boko Haram insurgents said; “It doesn’t have to be that way. There are many ways to kill a snake. Going there to visit is not the only way.
“In nine months, see the difference that has been made in the insurgency war. How many times did you see the president at the theatre of war…but see the difference that has been made. Results are what matter.”
He however chipped in a piece about the ‘wailing wailers’ who he described as kids whose lollipop had been taken, he said; “The wailing wailers, you’d see that I used that expression not quite a month or two into the life of the administration
“Now, how will a new administration…and maybe whenever the president says something, you just start hearing noise, wah, wah, wah, wah, like a child whose lollipop has been taken away.
“They don’t want to give an opportunity for the government, and that was why I said why are they wailing like wailers.
“Mr. President has no other things he does than to serve Nigeria. What can the people do? The people can support him; the wailing wailers should stop wailing and rather begin to encourage.”