The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described President Muhammadu Buhari as a “coward” for permitting his media aide, Mallam Garba Shehu to insult former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
In a Monday statement by the Director, Media and Publicity, PDP Presidential Campaign Council, Kola Ologbondiyan, the party said that the president had denigrated treasured national values by failing to call his aide to order.
The statement read, “The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) vilifies President Muhammadu Buhari for hauling insults on respected leaders and elder statesmen, including former President Olusegun Obasanjo, for cautioning against his desperation for self-succession.
“In approving his media aide, Mallam Shehu Garba, to cast aspersions and insult on a former President, President Buhari is setting a very bad example to younger Nigerians by fouling our national values and heritage of esteeming our elders and leaders; a seed, which may also haunt him in the future.
“Nigerians were appalled that President Buhari, whose state of health has been accommodated by the nation, would turn around to make baseless and unsubstantiated negative assertions on the health of another leader.
“President Buhari may have seen how Nigerians have been registering their disappointment on his resort to personal attacks on former President Obasanjo, instead responding to the germane issues raised by the former President.
“Nigerians have weighed all the concerns by former President Obasanjo, particularly the manifest desperation by the Buhari Presidency to undermine our democratic institutions, including the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the judiciary and the legislature as well as plots to use security forces to subvert the will of the people at the polls.
“Instead of attacking former President Obasanjo, President Buhari should have been sobered and retrace his steps in the interest of the corporate existence of our country which he is pushing to the precipice.
“The PDP therefore urges President Buhari to note that his resort to personal attacks on the critics of his administration cannot distract Nigerians from their resolve to rescue our nation from the stranglehold of his administration by voting him out of office, come February 16, 2019.”