The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has accused Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, former Chief of Staff to ex-Senate President Bukola Saraki of taking his bitterness against President Muhammadu Buhari to a ridiculous level in his latest column in the Daily Trust.
In a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke, BMO said the retired permanent secretary turned truth on its head in his column titled ‘Buhari’s Presidency: A comment’ and published on Wednesday, June 3.
“We acknowledge that Dr Baba-Ahmed has good writing skills and this was obvious in the way, he attempted to present his latest opinion piece as factual. But it is what it is, an opinion of a former member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who is still bitter about the loss of his sphere of influence that led to his exit from the party.
“We agree that It is within his rights to criticize his former party and President Muhammadu Buhari, but what is unacceptable is the way he attempted to make it look like a treatise from someone who knows the President so well and was keen on his success.
“No supporter of the President expected anything better from a member of the Saraki inner circle, especially someone as high up as his Chief of Staff, but it is a disservice to his academic credentials for him to attempt to present himself as a neutral commentator.
“Yes, Dr Baba Ahmed acknowledged that President Buhari inherited a lot of the security challenges he cited in his piece, as well as endemic corruption, but it was just a façade to pave way for his true intention of rubbishing ‘eight years’ of an administration that has just spent one year of its second and final term in office.
“It is also surprising that Baba Ahmed tagged President Buhari’s leadership style as extremely conservative and contradictory to the yearnings for change which brought him to power,” the statement added.
BMO noted that contrary to the impression the columnist sought to create, President Buhari has already cemented for himself a place in history with the legacy of positive developments in the country.
“For starters, someone that led the intellectual base of a Senate President who did everything to slow down the progress of the Buhari administration in his first term cannot be expected to see any good in a government that introduced the largest social welfare scheme in sub-Saharan Africa-the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP).
” This is a collective of initiatives that, more than anything, are benefitting millions of Nigerian masses who formed the power base of the President, and who were twice instrumental in propelling him to electoral victory after three previous failed attempts.
“Talking about legacy, the railway projects across the country which would see every major city in the country having a train station cannot be wished away even by the worst of critics. Not to talk about the Second Niger Bridge that is now taking shape but is not visible to the likes of Baba-Ahmed whose principal was swept off by the ‘O to ge’ (enough is enough) revolution in Kwara State.
“There is also the long-abandoned Ajaokuta Steel Complex which is about to be revived through a government-to-government arrangement with Russia. A similar arrangement with Germany will see Siemens boosting power generation and distribution in the country. There’s also the Mambila power project which had been a sore point for about 40 years, and which the Buhari administration has entered into a commitment with the Chinese to build.
“On security, the people of the North-East geopolitical zone knew what the situation was in 2015 when Boko Haram had carved up territory for itself, and today when it has been pushed to the fringes of Lake Chad. Even PDP members in Zamfara State know how well security has improved with the renewed onslaught against bandits in the North-West”.
The group consequently urged Dr Baba-Ahmed to stop taking discerning readers of Daily Trust for a ride with his jaundiced thoughts and remember his 2016 admonition to APC members who were leaving the party about having a lot of explanations to make to Nigerians
