Femi Adesina says Buhari is one Ndigbo's best friends debunking marginalisation claims

PRESIDENTIAL spokesman Femi Adesina has asserted that President Muhammadu Buhari is one of the best friends Ndigbo has ever had debunking claims that the president does not like or marginalises Igbos.

Since assuming office in 2015, President Buhari has been criticised for marginalising Ndigbo, not offering them their fair share of federal appointments and for neglecting their region. This has led to the rise in calls for secession and the recreation of the defunct Republic of Biafra amid claims that Igbos have no future in Nigeria.

Debunking these claims, however, in an article titled Wise men still come from the east, Mr Adesina said that President Buhari's recent trip to Igboland has torpedoed the negative narrative deliberately conjured by some mischief makers over the years. He noted that this assertion is fiction, pure apocryphal, conjured and concocted by some people to serve narrow political ends.

Mr Adesina said: “In his first shot at the presidency in 2003, who was Buhari’s running mate? Dr Chuba Okadigbo. Where did he come from? Ogbunike, town of the famous cave, in the southeast.

​"In 2007, candidate Buhari looked towards the East again, where he picked Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, a former speaker of the House of Representatives in the Second Republic, as his running mate. In 2011, I remember very clearly. Buhari was on the march again and needed a running mate but the socio-political leadership of the southeast forbade any of its sons from being running mate to anyone.​”

He added that they said their candidate was Goodluck Jonathan, who then was completing the term of President Umaru Yar’Adua. According to Mr Adesina, President Buhari then looked westwards and picked the cleric, Tunde Bakare but did he demonstrate any animosity towards the east.

​Mr Adesina recalled that in 2015, ​President Buhari, whom he described as the most colourful politician and the greatest crowd puller in Nigeria, threw his hat into the ring again. He said but the southeast was ​still in bed with Jonathan, completely besotted, vowing to swim or sink with their brother, Ebele Azikiwe​.

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“​Buhari looked westward again, picked Professor Yemi Osinbajo, as running mate. A large part of the east was dug in, not minding to play what may be called poor politics in the process but when the dust of the elections settled, Jonathan was holding the shorter end of the stick,​” Mr Adesina added.

He noted that although ​President Buhari coasted to the presidency, the entire southeast ​gave him just about 180,000 votes, less than what some local councils gave in other parts of the country. This week, President Buhari paid a two-day visit to the southeast, involving a one-day visit to Ebonyi State on November 14 and another one-day visit to Anambra State the following day.