NEF Leaders Are Only Pained Because Buhari Isn’t Their Puppet – Femi Adesina

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina has come out to blast the Northern Elders Forum for asking the Muhammadu Buhari to resign over his handling of insecurity challenges bedeviling the country.

He recently had his say via a press statement, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, he cannot take these leaders seriously because NEF is filled with self-seeking individuals who had hoped they will get the better of the regime after Buhari’s electoral victory in 2015.

Femi added that key personalities in the group even made strenuous efforts to be part of the administration, and when they didn’t succeed, they became adversaries.

His words, “The point of interest today is the hackneyed calls on President Buhari to resign over the country’s security challenges, the latest coming from a so-called Northern Elders Forum (NEF), a group I’d once described as “Generals without troops.”

“The Forum is largely made of angry, bitter, self-seeking individuals, who had thought they would be leading President Buhari by the nose when he emerged in 2015. In fact, key personalities in the group made strenuous efforts to be part of the administration. When they didn’t succeed, they became adversaries.”

“It is on record that NEF had always opposed the Buhari administration since its gambit failed, and before the 2019 presidential election, it openly endorsed Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party as next President.”

“And that completely vitiates whatever position the Forum adopts today. It is partisan, bilious, by no means neutral. It is from a self-serving standpoint.”

“Between 2009 and 2022, there were at least 271 mass shootings in United States of America, resulting in 1,518 people killed, and 980 wounded. Just this week, there has been the Brooklyn Subway Shooting, in which at least 23 people were critically injured.”

“vIn all these, did you hear calls for the resignation of any American President? It is on record that last year was the deadliest in a decade, in terms of mass shootings. Have you heard of calls for the resignation of President Joe Biden by a caterwauling band? No.”

“Every life is important. No single life should be taken wantonly. Not in America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and definitely not in Nigeria. And when challenges occur, as we currently have, it should not be turned to a leaky political umbrella, from under which you hide to express hatred and malice.”

“That is what is happening in Nigeria today. Individuals, groups, organizations, political parties, who had been against President Muhammadu Buhari, and who had been given bloody noses at the polls, are now using the smokescreen of insecurity to vent their spleen.”

“We failed to oust him through the ballot box, let’s run him out of town by another means. Let’s instigate the country against him. But majority of Nigerians know better.”