*Vested interests out to create panic — Presidency
“We believe Buhari and people around him have no reason to hide anything from us the stakeholders of the government. We strongly believe in the President, we believe in the capacity of his spokesmen; Lai Mohammed, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu. We also believe in his wife who told us that her husband’s health is not as bad as perceived. Whoever therefore wants to carry rumour should go ahead.”
Efforts by some vested interests to create panic through yet another rumoured death of President Muhammadu Buhari may no longer fly in Nigeria as their fresh rumour is said to have hit brick wall due to resolve by Nigerians to henceforth discountenance the evil machinations whenever they are let loose.
President Buhari is currently on vacation for his medical follow-up in London based on the advice of his doctors.
A respondent of The DEFENDER, who spoke Monday morning, said it would be disturbing if anybody in the government quarters should respond to the no-longer popular rumour of the President’s death as response, according to him, is the main reason the rumour gets strength.
He added that unlike the PDP era when the health conditions of President Umar Musa Yar’Adua and Taraba State Governor Danbaba Suntai were politicized for reasons best known to the PDP stalwarts in government, that “We believe Buhari and people around him have no reason to hide anything from us the stakeholders of the government. We strongly believe in the President, we believe in the capacity of his spokesmen; Lai Mohammed, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu. We also believe in his wife who told us that her husband’s health is not as bad as perceived. Whoever therefore wants to carry rumour should go ahead.”
He said, “Such rumour coming at this time has now proved to us that many Nigerians are either not serious about moving forward or that they think that the only way to go is for corruption to continue and so anybody that would be the clop in their wheels must be removed through whatever plot.
“We have realized this and therefore, we have resolved, as reasonable and law abiding Nigerian people, to continue to discountenance any information regarding President Muhammadu that is neither from Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Mr. Femi Adesina and Mallam Garba Shehu.
“As far we are concerned, such information is rumour and when an information is rumour, it means nobody is ready to be identified with it but that he that is the author only let it into the air as his evil machination to cause panic in the land. That will never be allowed any longer and we call Nigerian people who are serious about having a better Nigeria to so believe,” he said.
The Presidency, however, has condemned the fresh rumour of the President’s death, describing it as a plot by vested interests to create panic.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, described the rumour as vain.
“Why do some people rage and imagine vain things? It is the counsel of God that shall stand. May God bless all those praying for PMB,” Adesina wrote on his Twitter handle, @FemAdesina.
Also speaking via his Twitter handle Sunday night, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, said that nothing unpleasant had happened to the President.
The presidential media aide asked Nigerians to disregard the rumour, saying it was baseless.
“Baseless rumours are trending again that an unpleasant thing has happened to our beloved President.
“If you have received this information on WhatsApp or Facebook, disregard it because it is a plain lie spread by vested interests to create panic.
“Nothing unpleasant has happened to the President. No cause for apprehension. Thanks for the many calls,” Shehu said.
President Buhari departed for London penultimate Saturday night for a follow-up consultation with his doctors who were to determine the length of his stay there.
It would be recalled that the President had been similarly rumoured dead during his last medical vacation in the United Kingdom in January.
