The Presidential Adviser on Political Matters, Senator Babafemi Ojudu, and the Ekiti State governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, have locked horns over the illness of President Muhammadu Buhari.

 

Fayose, in a statement recently, had asked Buhari who is currently vacating in the United Kingdom on account of ill health, to resign if he could not continue in office due to his age and sickness. “We need an active president going by our numerous challenges. ‎How long will Nigerians wait for an incapacitated president‎?” “We cannot wait again for somebody to hold us to ransom. ‎I don’t have any bad blood against Buhari. Osinbajo has no powers without the president. He owes us the duty to tell us the state ‎of his health.”

 

This statement from Fayose, Senator Ojudu viewed as ‘disrespectful’.

 

Replying Fayose, Senator Ojudu, who himself is from Ekiti State, said Fayose’s many ranting against the president is portraying the state in bad light.

Fayose on Tuesday in his latest attack on the President has said;

But in his reaction, Ojudu described the governor’s comments as disrespectful of a man old enough to be his father.

He advised Fayose to devote more time to ensuring that citizens of Ekiti State enjoy good governance than going about disparaging the President.

 

Meanwhile, the Special Assistant to the Ekiti State Governor on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka has reacted to Ojudu’s statement of caution to his boss, asking Ojudu to “resolve issues with his immediate family before dabbling into matters concerning Nigeria and Ekiti State in particular.”

 

Olayinka said; “Ojudu will be making the biggest political mistake if he believed that this time around, he will ride on the back of political treachery, blackmail and bootlicking to become the governor of Ekiti State,” adding that Ojudu should rather advise President Buhari to go back to his farm in Daura, Katsina State if he has become too old to be corrected by Nigerians, who elected him and on whose sweat he is being sustained.”

 

He said Nigerians, irrespective of their age and position have inalienable rights to criticize public office holders, including the president, adding that; “Civilian dictators like Senator Ojudu are the ones carrying public office on their heads and playing god in the lives of Nigerians.”

 

-Folorunsho Hamsat