The Director, Strategic Communications of President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation, Festus Keyamo (SAN), has said that the gang-up against President Buhari’s re-election bid by a class of retired military Generals and opposition politicians is criminal.
Keyamo, spoke with VINCENT KALU, against the background of the adoption of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar by a coalition of 41 political parties and other clandestine meetings by some former heads of state to frustrate the re-election of the president.
The gang-up against the re-election of President Buhari notched up this week, as the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) adopted the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar as its consensus candidate. Are you not worried that the defeat of APC is imminent?
Most of these parties that are adopting the PDP presidential candidate now were the same that adopted its candidate last time. If you look at the political history of Nigeria, in 2015, all these small parties adopted Jonathan, and they were defeated.
Let us not pretend that we are from Cameroon, Mali or Chad that we don’t know who are in these parties. Most of these parties you say are political parties are made up of husband and wife, children, brothers and sisters. These are parties registered for ulterior motives. Most of them have presence only in Abuja, where they have small place they put their flags as office. Let us not deceive ourselves as if we were from Cameroon or all these other countries, these parties are not on the ground at all. I don’t think that the national secretaries of the parties know who the national chairman is, or the national chairman knows who the national auditor is.
What the PDP is doing is just a grand deceit to the Nigerian people, and giving the impression that there is grand coalition. There is no grand coalition; it is just membership drive that the PDP is going on.
As it is today, by some divine design, most of the people that Nigerians have always complained about; by some designs and some natural forces they just find themselves in one political boat this time around against one man, Muhammadu Buhari.
It appears to me that this gang-up; this coming together is by deliberate design, and the deliberate design is that Nigerians have seen very clearly now those who do not like the anti-corruption posture of the president. I want you to be observant of most of their complaints against this man they are ganging up against; their complaint is about rigidity. In 2015, when the coalition came up against Jonathan it was about corruption, everybody knew it was the most corrupt government we have had, but this time, the cry of the gang up is rigidity.
Rigidity was the same complaint they had against him in 1985 when they overthrew him as the military head of state for fighting corruption. Nigerians now have a choice who to follow. On one hand, Nigerians can see all the people who have been the problems of this country from day one till now, and on the other side, is this one man, who has set himself against this system of lootocrats; this system of corruption since December 1983. So, this is the first time that Nigerians are having a very clear choice to make between this man, the masses, ordinary people of Nigeria on one side, and the so-called bourgeoisies standing on one side.
Vice President Osinbajo also has decried this gang up, when he said that some people are praying for the president’s death, when you add all these including the meeting of some past heads of state in this direction, doesn’t this amount to treason against a sitting president?
Treason is when you want to put your intention into practicality; if there is a clear indication that there is by any means someone who wants to kill the president, that will be treason. This is not treason as spelt out in the criminal code, but it’s just a criminal gang-up. If, as a criminal gang-up, they begin to put action plans to forcefully remove him outside the ballot box, then it becomes treason.
What of the issue of the president’s death and his replacement by another Jubril from Sudan, and some people praying for his death?
It is madness and the height of impunity. Insanity is brought about by their passionate hatred for the man. I give an example, if you passionately hate somebody so much that when the person is sick you conclude within yourself that the person must die and he would not come out alive, and all your juju men tell you that this person must die, when the person reappears and he didn’t die, you become hesitant to know whether you are seeing the person of a ghost because you have locked yourself up; you have locked up your psychology to assume the person is dead. So, when the person reappears, in order for you to maintain your sanity, you must begin to assume that this is a ghost and not the real person. That is what they are assuming. Those who are assuming that he is not the real person are trying to maintain their sanity because they concluded that he was going to die, so when he came back they are only trying to maintain their sanity.
The fact that he is getting back to good health everyday, they cannot accept it and it is making them mad, that is why some actors are going mad; the so-called political opponents are going mad, all those separatist leaders are going mad. They are going mad because they cannot come to terms that he is bouncing back to good health; they cannot live with that fact.
I give you an example, there are some people in the US who so much hated Donald Trump, and supported Hillary Clinton. When Trump won, they could not live with the fact that Trump won, what they did was to set up a virtual White House in their computers at home, and put Hillary inside the White House in their computer. So, every morning, they look at the White House and they see Hilary there, and say, ‘this is our president’, just to make sure that they don’t go insane because Trump is in the White House. It is just to keep their sanity, that is what is happening to those wishing Buhari dead.
Still talking about gang-up, the Southwest leaders said the Yoruba will vote a president that is keen on restructuring, and Atiku is promising that. What do you think will happen?
I don’t know why you people keep using this word, ‘the Southwest leaders.’ Who are the Southwest leaders? Don’t say Southwest leaders, just call their names. Do you know what it means to be a Southwest leader? Just say, a socio-political group, called Afenifere, instead of Southwest leaders. My mother is from Southwest, so I’m a stakeholder in the Southwest, and they are not my leaders because they don’t represent my interest. They are socio-political group.
(The Sun)
