Former associates of the president who spoke to Saturday Vanguard yesterday lamented that the president had over the time developed the habit of not keeping friends and rather sustained the culture of only patronising those who tell him what he wants to hear.
Galadima, erstwhile secretary of the defunct Congress for Progressives Change, CPC and leader of The Buhari Organisation, TBO, the once famed political think-tank for Buhari’s politics fell out with Buhari in the period leading to the formation of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
He re-emerged on Wednesday as chairman of the Reformed All Progressives Congress, R-APC.In his outing he flayed the administration saying: “The APC government, has been a monumental disaster, even worse than the government it replaced.
The political party that was a vehicle for enthroning the government was rendered powerless by manipulations and complete lack of due process in its operations.”Besides Galadima, among other notable figures who collaborated to enthrone the president in power but who have now fallen out with him include Dr. Junaid Mohammed, Alhaji Sule Hamman, Dr. Usman Bugaje, and a number of leading lights in the APC among whom is Senate President Bukola Saraki.
While some who spoke on the development preferred to speak on the condition of anonymity, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, was scathing in his depiction of the president as a man who doesn’t maintain friends.
“He wants yes men and not those who will tell him home truth, he doesn’t like people like that. He wants what he says no matter how nonsensical to be accepted as gospel truth,” Dr. Mohammed, a Russian trained medical doctor and leading light of the Second Republic House of Representatives told Saturday Vanguard yesterday. “People who had been in politics long before him will not follow him blindly. Anybody who has association with him will tell you that the man has nothing to offer and when you are talking about politics and governance, you are talking about what you can offer.”“These people were not around and he didn’t look for them. He doesn’t remember anybody,” Mohammed added in reference to the absence from government of some of the president’s former prominent political associates.Another close associate who was in the APC Presidential Campaign spoke in the same light.
“Even if you have been with him for ages, if he doesn’t see you again, he will not ask and it is not just me but those who have been with him for years also complain,” the APC leader said.Challenged on what could have erupted between Buhari and Galadima, Dr. Mohammed said:“A man has very little control over who is going to be his enemy and at the same time there is a limit to which he can go to ingratiate himself with those who are regarded as his enemies or his opponents.
“Again, any time somebody comes into power and you know him or you are his friend, you have to be very careful because unless he asks you to come around, don’t because you are likely to be humiliated.
What I noticed about Buhari is that he does not have those who are genuine friends. You are only a friend once he needs you, to advance his interests. Whenever you see him with people around him, he is the one who is benefiting from the relationship and nobody except those who are prepared to be humiliated in order to make money will hang around him for any long period.
“He does not provide enlightened leadership, he doesn’t offer any word of wisdom and as long as you are not a member of the family you are nobody even if you have all the wisdom in the world. So it is very difficult for me to comment on his relationship with Buba Galadima. Buba followed him for at least one and a half decades as far as I know and today he is at daggers drawn with Buba and Buba is willing to lead an insurgency within the APC and it shows you that we are in very unchartered waters.”
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