The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, on Friday said he had been vindicated by the recent outburst of President Muhammadu Buhari’ wife, Aisha, about her husband’s leadership.
Mr. Saraki said the fact that Mrs. Buhari could come out to openly express reservations about her husband’s appointees showed that his earlier argument that the government had been hijacked, was in good faith.
Mr. Saraki on June 27 said some individuals within Mr. Buhari’s government were running a “government within the government”.
“It has become clear that there is a government within the government of President Buhari who have seized apparatus of executive powers to pursue their nefarious agenda,” Mr. Saraki said at the time.
Mr. Buhari pushed back against the comments, describing them as a figment of Mr. Saraki’s imagination. But in an interview with the BBC, Mrs. Buhari appeared to agree with Mr. Saraki’s position. She criticised her husband’s choices of cabinet members and heads of agencies. The first lady said her husband packed his cabinet with people he barely knew, suggesting that the government had been hijacked.
She also said she may not support her husband’s re-election if the president failed to shake up his cabinet. Mr. Saraki’s comments were conveyed by a tweet posted by his media aide, Bamikole Omisore, on Friday morning. Mr. Omisore said Mrs. Buhari’s comment came “months apart” from Mr. Saraki’s own complaint about “the same thing”.
Mr. Omisore said Mr. Buhari and those who criticised Mr. Saraki at the time he made the comments should understand that both the president’s wife and his principal meant well for the administration. “Aisha Buhari and Bukola Saraki both have the best interest of President Buhari at heart,” Mr. Omisore said in the tweet.
