The Presidency has dismissed the assessment of the Buhari administration by the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, describing the forum as a quasi-organisation that boast of no credible membership, and its leader was akin to a General without troops.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the forum had on Sunday scored the All Progressives Congress led Federal Government low, saying the government appeared helpless in finding solutions to nation’s security challenges as well as poverty in the country.
The forum addressed journalists at the end of the meeting convened by its chairman, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, where it alleged that ”poverty, particularly in the North and massive social security have worsened under Buhari’s administration.”
Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, however, in a statement in Abuja on Sunday, expressed reservations over the NEF verdict on the Buhari administration, saying Mr Abdullahi had again shown his antipathy against the president.
”Prof. Ango Abdullahi on Sunday signed a long-winding statement on many issues relating to the North, and purportedly to the country.
”The former vice chancellor signed the statement under the banner of Northern Elders Forum (NEF). Hearing that title, you would think the body was a conglomeration of true elders.
”But the truth is that NEF is just Ango Abdullahi, and Ango Abdullahi is NEF. It is a quasi-organisation that boasts of no credible membership, and its leader is akin to a General without troops.
”Before the 2019 presidential election, the one-man army called NEF had shown its antipathy against President Muhammadu Buhari, and its preference for another candidate. They all got beaten together.
”NEF is merely waving a flag that is at half-mast. Buhari steadily and steadfastly focuses on the task of retooling Nigeria, and discerning Nigerians know the true state of the nation.
”They don’t need a paper tiger to tell them anything,” he said.
NAN