Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has said President Muhammadu Buhari will not be distracted by frivolous allegations from any quarter, especially those choreographed to divert attention from a widely-acclaimed presidential proclamation and to shore up support for a waning and egotistical cause.
Mr Mohammed’s statement came shortly after former President Olusegun Obasanjo accused the Buhari-led Federal Government of plotting to frame and jail him for speaking out against it.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Friday, Mohammed said the administration is too busy trying to clear the mess of 16 years and build on its unprecedented achievements over the past three years to waste its energy and time on framing up anyone or dwelling on issues that are not grounded in fact.
He said while those who have skeletons in their wardrobes should be afraid, even of their own shadows, innocent persons need not worry about any investigation, whether real or imagined.
“This administration will never engage in a frame-up of innocent citizens. That is neither in the character of President Muhammadu Buhari nor in that of his administration. Only the guilty should be worried. To paraphrase an African proverb, a man who has no wife cannot lose an in-law to the cold hands of death.
“The administration is also strongly committed to the tenets of democracy, including freedom of speech and the right to dissent. But we understand that those who, in their time, were untethered to those principles would find it hard to believe,” Mohammed said.
Buhari had on Wednesday declared June 12 Nigeria’s new Democracy Day and conferred the highest national honour of Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR) on the widely acclaimed winner of the annulled June 12, 1993, presidential election, Moshood Abiola.
It was a recognition many expected Obasanjo would give the late Abiola during his eight-year presidency which ran from 1999 to 2007.
According to Mohammed, it was curious that the frame-up and witch-hunt allegations by Obasanjo came a day after a major presidential proclamation reversing some past acts of injustice was made, to the relief and acclamation of a long-expectant nation.
“Apparently, the impact of this proclamation was too much to bear by those who, through acts of omission or commission, helped to deepen the wounds inflicted by the blow of injustice that followed an election that was widely acclaimed to be free, fair and credible; hence they felt the need for a red herring that will distract the nation.
“Added to that is the frustration brought about by the fact that the contraption they have so much hyped as a freeway to power has failed to gain traction. Faced with this double tragedy, even the strongest of men may begin to succumb to a figment of their imagination. They may start crying wolf where there is none,” he said.
Mohammed said the unprecedented achievements of the Buhari Administration are also enough to cause sleepless nights, with the attendant symptoms that include phantasm, for those who had better opportunities to make the country great but floundered on the altar of narcissism.
