<\/p>\n
Calling President Tinubu by name is not Nigeria\u2019s problem- Atiku\u2019s aide<\/p>\n
Former Vice -President Atiku Abubakar has said that calling President Bola Tinubu by his name is a not an offence or a problem that concerns Nigeria.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mr Paul Ibe, the Media aide to Atiku, stated this in his reaction on X platform to the comments by Nigeria\u2019s Ambassador-Designate to South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini, Femi Fani-Kayode.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fani-Kayode has criticised Atiku for repeatedly referring to President Tinubu as \u201cBola\u201d in his October 1 Independence Day address.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Ibe said that in a country battling hardship, insecurity and prohibitive food, transport and energy costs, the emergency that concerned Kayode was that Atiku called Tinubu, by his name, Bola.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cNigeria is a republic, not a monarchy. The President is an elected public servant, not an emperor before whom opponents must genuflect. \u201cPresident\u201d is an office, not a compulsory prefix shielding its occupant from criticism.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cAtiku committed no crime or constitutional violation by calling Bola Tinubu \u201cBola\u201d. You may consider it discourteous. That is your opinion, not an offence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ibe noted that there was a bigger problem with Fani-Kayode\u2019s sermon, which he described as the moral contradiction of the preacher.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cYou lecture Atiku about \u201cdecency\u201d, \u201cdecorum\u201d and \u201crestraint\u201d, yet your essay calls people \u201cpit bull terriers\u201d, \u201chungry wolves\u201d, \u201cfallen angels\u201d and sufferers of \u2018pathological obsession\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ibe said it was the same Fani-Kayode who publicly berated a Daily Trust journalist for asking a legitimate question, adding that his writings about the Igbo had repeatedly attracted accusations of ethnic stereotyping and inflammatory rhetoric.<\/p>\n
Also reacting to Fani-Kayode\u2019s reference to political disagreement between Atiku and Obasanjo, saying it is not treason.<\/p>\n
He said that Atiku was Vice President, not Obasanjo\u2019s domestic servant, adding that Atiku’s court victories from that era helped deepen Nigeria’s constitutional democracy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the claim that Obasanjo knelt before Atiku, Atiku has denied it, while others have offered a different account. It remains disputed history. You may choose your version, but you cannot manufacture certainty.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Goodluck Jonathan, Atiku offered a political assessment of his preparedness for office. You may disagree. Criticism is not disrespect.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cAs for @ChibuikeAmaechi, political rivals can later become allies. That is coalition building. You should understand this better than most: you are today in the APC supporting a man you once vowed never to support,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ibe added that \u201cthe Deborah Samuel tragedy deserves more seriousness than partisan point-scoring. Atiku explained that the deleted post was published without his approval. I, as his Media Adviser, can confirm that no approval was obtained before its deployment. He subsequently condemned the killing and stated clearly that Islam provides no justification for taking another person’s life outside due process.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cBut all these diversions expose the weakness of your essay: you barely answered what Atiku actually said on October 1. And he said quite a lot.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cHas food become cheaper under Bola? Petrol more affordable? Electricity cheaper or more reliable? Are Nigerians safer? Are incomes stronger? Are businesses thriving? Is the average Nigerian better off?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are the questions that matter,\u201d Ibe said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ibe said that it was easier to debate \u201cBola\u201d versus \u201cMr President\u201d than to defend what Tinubu\u2019s policies had done to Nigerians.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2027, Nigerians will vote on food, petrol, electricity, jobs, insecurity, the naira and their quality of life \u2014 not forms of address.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cFemi can keep counting how many times Atiku said \u201cBola\u201d. Nigerians are counting the cost of surviving under Bola,\u201d he said<\/p>\n
Fani-Kayode had earlier stated that he listened to Atiku\u2019s October 1st speech with great interest.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was calm and well-delivered but intellectually-flawed, highly disrespectful, inherently dishonest and utterly bereft of decency and logic.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWorse still you refused to address @officialABAT as \u2018President\u2019 but rather continuously and contemptuously referred to him by his first name \u2018Bola\u2019.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cSurely this level of pettiness is below even you. Yet despite this provocation I will not refer to you as \u2018Kachalla\u2019 and accord you the respect that I still think you deserve,\u201d Fani-Kayode stated.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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Former Vice -President Atiku Abubakar has said that calling President Bola Tinubu by his name is a not an offence or a problem that concerns Nigeria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[799,798,26],"class_list":["post-1369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-atibu","tag-name","tag-tinubu"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1369"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1371,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369\/revisions\/1371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}