If Buhari were to be Obasanjo, he would’ve insulted those demanding presidential address, says Adesina

The Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, has called out those asking his principal to deliver another nationwide broadcast on the coronavirus pandemic.

Buhari has come under attacks from some quarters for not doing enough, particularly in updating Nigerians on how his government has been combating the spread of the novel disease.

But in an article titled, ‘If you can’t take blows brother, don’t throw blows’, and posted on his Facebook page, the president’s spokesman wondered if Nigerians would have made such request if it were to be Obasanjo that was still in power.

He wrote: “You know what? If it was former President Olusegun Obasanjo that had come under the ‘you must talk to us’ barrage like that, and on live television, he would have first cleared his throat noisily, adjusted himself in his seat, and then bellowed: ‘And who are you, that I must talk to you? I say who the hell are you?

“Who is your father? Who is your father’s father that you are commanding me to talk to you? Were you born when we fought a civil war to keep this country together? Where was your father when I received the instrument of surrender from the Biafra Forces? Don’t come here and tell me nonsense. Talk to us, my foot!

“But President Buhari would not upbraid anyone like that. He rather keeps his peace. And some people have now taken liberty for license, till they begin to sound like broken records. Yes, no apologies. That’s how they sound.

“The fact that you have voted a man into office is not carte blanche for you to lead the man around by the nose. A leader worth his salt would not even submit himself to such cavalier treatment. Definitely not President Buhari. I made that point clear on the programme.”

His comment had come amid backlashes trailing the way he addressed Nigerians when he recently appeared on 95.1 Nigeria Info FM Abuja.