WorldStage Newsonline– A Second Republic federal lawmaker, Junaid Mohammed, says President Muhammadu Buhari’s mourning of the late ex-president Shehu Shagari amounted to nothing but hypocrisy and insincerity.
According to Junaid, Buhari is unqualified to give a tribute to late ex-president Shehu Shagari when the latter’s government was overthrown by a military coup led by current president Buhari.
The former Nigerian leader died at the National Hospital in Abuja, the nation’s capital, according to his grandson, Bello Shagari, who announced his death on Twitter.
Shagari was Nigeria’s first elected president from October 1979 till December 1983. His government was overthrown by a military coup led by current president Muhammadu Buhari.
He was subsequently detained, alongside his deputy, Alex Ekwueme, by Buhari in 1984.
And in his reaction to Shagari’s demise, Buhari, speaking through his top media aide Femi Adesina, said: “On behalf of my family, the government and the people of Nigeria, it is with immense sadness that I received the news of the passing away of the First Executive President of Nigeria, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, which event happened on Friday in Abuja.”
“More specifically, we celebrate the role-modelling qualities of integrity, diligence and humility that have been the hallmark of your visionary leadership,” Buhari added.
However, Mohammed, in an interview, faulted the president’s tribute.
He said: “Quite a number of the people who would claim to be his friends were actually his enemies and they contributed tremendously to bringing down that government and in making it impossible for us to have meaningful democratic dispensation years after his departure from office.”
As far as the elder statesman is concerned, Buhari “contribute so much in bringing down a government and bringing down a man who had nothing to gain, even though he had poor eyesight and was in poor health.
”He [Shagari] was in his late 60s then – you (Buhari) cannot say, from 1984 till now, you got along well. How did you get along well?”
He also said: “No matter what you say about the Shagari administration, he knew how to retire from public service quietly, with a tremendous amount of nobility and self-respect. You have to give him that.”
