Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina has fired back at those criticizing his principal over his refusal to visit the crisis-ridden Agatu community in Benue.
Adesina said the president did not have to visit victims of Boko Haram onslaught or herdsmen massacre to show that he was feeling their pains.
Speaking on Buhari’s failure to visit Agatu communities after the herdsmen massacre, Adesina said the president already reacted to the massacre in a statement.
He added that Buhari was not a talkative person.
“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 said in an interview with Osasu Igbinedion on The Osasu Show.
“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.
“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?”
When reminded that the president was disconnected from the people who may be in need of empathy, Adesina said: “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.”
Speaking on visits to Boko Haram victims as done under former president, Goodluck Jonathan, Adesina said it did not have to be that 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.”
Adesina also likened “wailing wailers” to kids whose lollipop had been taken, calling on them to stop wailing and support the president in attaining enduring change.
“The wailing wailers, you’d see that I used that expression not quite a month or two into the life of the administration.
“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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