The special adviser on media and publicity to president Muhammadu Buhari, Femi Adesina, has gone on the offensive again with the ‘wailing wailers’–a phrase he had coined to describe the army of opposition against Muhammadu Buhari just weeks into the life of the current administration.
Adesina who was speaking on The Osasu Show, defended the president for not visiting Agatu in Benue State, where hundreds of Nigerians had been slain by Fulani herdsmen. Adesina said visiting scenes of terror or killing fields isn’t the president’s style.
President Buhari had come in for plenty of stick for not visiting Agatu and for not publicly speaking to condemn the attack.
“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?”, asked Adesina.
“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?”
Adesina fought back insinuations that Buhari is getting increasingly disconnected from the people.
“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 said visiting terror sites or victims of terror as Jonathan occasionally did, isn’t the only way.
“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 said the president is naturally taciturn and isn’t about to change. “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.”
Adesina wouldn’t end the interview without laying into the ‘wailing wailers’, though.
“The wailing wailers, you’d see that I used that expression not quite a month or two into the life of the administration,” he said.
“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 didn’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.”
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