Nigerians have reacted to the interview granted by the President, Muhammadu Buhari in which he opened up on why Babangida and Gusau ousted him from power.
Th president in an exclusive interview published in the current edition of The Interview magazine said he learnt “that Aliyu Gusau, who was in charge of intelligence, took import licence from the ministry of commerce which was in charge of supplies and gave it to Alhaji Mai Deribe.
“It was worth N100,000, a lot of money at that time. I confronted them and took the case to the Army council in a memo…I wanted Gusau punished.”
Buhari noted specifically that he was ousted because of his determination to probe Gusau and other parties involved in the deal.
In reaction, Nigerians have called on the President to look forward and aid in healing the ailing nation instead of busying himself with matters of the past.
In view of this, Nigerians on social media took to their ‘mouthpiece’, the internet, to express their opinion.
A social media user wrote: “Rubbish. Nigerians are more interested in their future than the past of one or two greedy individuals”, another padded the idea by commenting: “Baba !! Work and forget the past!!! Boiz are not smiling sir.”
Other reactions include:
What is our business with things that happened in 1985, we’re not living in the past, this is 2016 so he shld focus on the future and spare us of his past. grin
“So you came to take ur revenge on them abi?, you should be lucky you were not murdered in that coup.”
“Buhari was removed for incompetence and tribalism, any other narrative is an attempt to skew the history books. 31yrs later same thing is happening all over again.”
“We also heard that your WAI was selective.You probe your enemies who were found to be corrupt and leave your friends who were also corrupt.That was why you were overthrown.”
“There was more to Buhari’s removal than just the memo. The coup speech by Abacha encapsulated all that was wrong with his government. That’s why no other change took place in the composition of the SMC save for the appointment of Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe and then Major General Sani Abacha as the Chief of General Staff and Chief of Army Staff respectively.”
“I just hope there are other Babangida and Gusau around now to kick you out from power again so that your nepotism, bigotry, impunity, total disregard to our diversity, etc, will not put our nation into crisis”
“Babangida coup speech showed that Buhari was removed mainly because of his regime tribal sentiments and disrespect for other cultures and tribes. Buhari is the most tribalistic President Nigeria ever has.”
Himself got there by coup against democratically ellected government of the then. Or why is he crying over a splilt milk?
“If you have any score to settle with each other, do it on a neutral ground. The vehicle of progress of this country is on reverse gear and the steering wheel is vendatta while the driver is a (power) drunk.”
Another social media user concluded: I don’t know whether to be happy or sad. The story shows that baba hates money corruption, has always hated money corruption, which is good. But this story also shows that baba never forgives. I don’t know whether unforgiveness is good or bad for Nigeria. I would guess bad.