The Buhari Media Organisation, BMO, has said that Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka was wrong in his assessment of President Muhammadu Buhari’s policies and conduct.
In a statement by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke, made available to Ashenewsonline on Thursday, the Organisation said the seed of division was planted by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the run-up to the 2015 and 2019 elections.
“The highly respected Laureate’s piece is, therefore, a magnificent piece of fiction, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing but malicious discontent and discord.
“It is a bit surprising that the revered Nobel Laureate would jump on the train of coordinated verbal attacks on the President by individuals and groups that never saw anything good in him and who can, in fact, be described as members of the opposition PDP by association.
“Any lover of literature would thoroughly enjoy the piece by a literary giant of Professor Soyinka’s stature, which we see as nothing but a rehash of some of his collection of literary works written in his typical style.
“We believe that it is only in a work of fiction that one would be told that the policies of President Buhari are dividing the nation when in reality, he is correcting the skewed development and politics that PDP bequeathed to Nigerians in 2015.
“Was it not members of the former ruling party that threatened to make the country ungovernable in 2011 if then President Goodluck Jonathan does not respect some unwritten agreement to allow the North complete the expected two-term tenure of his late principal, Umaru Yar’Adua?
“We also saw how the party played up the faultlines of a deeply fractious country like ours by turning the 2015 Presidential election into a religious battle, even to the extent of procuring a British public relations firm, Cambridge Analytica, to push a negative narrative of a Buhari that will impose Sharia Law on all Nigerians if elected, aside from other invectives poured on the All Progressives Congress (APC) which was called janjaweed party and other ethnic slurs used for its political campaigns.
“That was when the seeds of ethnic and religious division, which PDP elements have continued to hold on to, were planted”, BMO said adding that the Buhari administration has since 2015 embarked on life-changing projects in all the geo-political zones.
“Incidentally, the cultural groups which all backed PDP in 2015 and 2019 against President Buhari are not known to make noise over projects in their domain, aside from the very trivial complaint by PANDEF recently over the government’s decision to name railway stations after some eminent Nigerians.
“This is because this administration has done more than its predecessors in many parts of the country. For instance, PDP did little in the South West in 16 years, but that region is witnessing strong federal presence in terms of road and rail projects. The same thing is happening in the South East and other parts of the country.
“We make bold to say these are not things you see in a country where the President has ‘policies and conducts’ that could be said to benefit one part of the country to the detriment of others. In fact, some individuals from northern Nigeria have accused him of doing more for the South.
“Even arguments of lopsided appointments that these groups tend to raise have been debunked by fact-checkers; and to show how keen President Buhari is about the country’s unity, he recently unveiled a logo for Nigeria’s 60th independence anniversary with the theme,’Together’.
The group urged all Nigerians to rally behind the President in his bid to deepen national unity.
