.First Lady Asks Him To Resign For Humiliating Her
.Says Garba Shehu Is Disloyal To President, Family
.Blames Buhari’s Cousin, Mamman Daura, For Action
.Put Your House In Order, PDP Mocks Buhari
.Says First Lady’s Outburst Exposes His Incompetence
Abuja – Despite attempts to manage a protracted conflict in Aso Rock that has squared up President Muhammadu Buhari’s wife, Aisha, against the president’s cousin, Mamman Daura, it became open on Wednesday when the first lady finally spilled the beans in a statement in which she accused Mallam Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the President on Media and Publicity, of disloyalty.
The first lady’s outburst, Aso Rock sources said on Wednesday, has unsettled the presidency that is embarrassed by the statement.
In the statement she personally signed, the first lady accused Shehu of transferring his loyalty to Daura and working against the interest of the first family, noting that he had been “a willing tool and executioner of their antics”.
She said Shehu took instruction from Daura at the beginning of the Buhari administration to declare that there won’t be an office of the first lady, a development which, she said, embarrassed the president.
The first lady insisted that the president’s media aide had betrayed the trust of the first family and advised him to resign.
She said: “As spokesperson of the president, he (Garba Shehu) has the onerous responsibility of managing the image of the president and all the good works that he is executing in the country.
“Rather than face this responsibility squarely, he has shifted his loyalty from the president to others who have no stake in the contract that the president signed with Nigerians on May 29, 2015 and 2019.
“To make matters worse, Mr. Shehu has presented himself to these people as a willing tool and executioner of their antics, from the corridors of power even to the level of interfering with the family affairs of the president.
“This should not be so. The blatant meddling in the affairs of a first lady of a country is a continuation of the prodigal actions of those that he serves.
“We all remember that the chief proponent appropriated to himself and his family a part of the Presidential Villa, where he stayed for almost four years and when the time came for him to leave, he orchestrated and invaded my family’s privacy through a video circulated by Mamman’s daughter, Fatima, the public was given the impression that on arrival into the country I was locked out of the villa by Mr. President.
“Garba Shehu, as villa spokesperson, knew the truth and had the responsibility to set the records straight, but because his allegiance is somewhere else and his loyalty misplaced, he deliberately refused to clear the air and speak for the president who appointed him in the first place.
“Consequently, his action has shown a complete breakdown of trust between the first family and him.”
Recalling some of the actions of Shehu, she said: “Mr. Shehu was privy and part of the plan and its execution and he was shocked when he realised that I had publicised my return to Nigeria on October 12, 2019 and cleared the air on the many rumours that took over social media, a job he was supposed to do but kept mute to cause more confusion and instability for his principal and his family.
“Garba then vented his anger on the National Television Authority (NTA) management insisting that the media crew to my office must be sacked. He succeeded in getting them suspended for doing their job.
“I had to intervene to save the innocent staff from losing their means of livelihood by involving the Department of State Services (DSS) in order to ascertain roles played by key actors in the saga.
“It is at this late hour that I recall, sadly, that it was the same Garba Shehu who claimed that the government will not allow office of the first lady to run.
“He was later to confirm to one of my aides that he was instructed to say so by Mamman Daura and not the president. This antic attracted the anger of Nigerian women. He didn’t realise the fact that first lady’s office is a tradition which has become an institution.
“Today, even without a budget, I am able run my humanitarian programmes.
“In saner climes, Garba Shehu would have resigned immediately after going beyond his boundaries and powers.
“The latest of his antics was to wage a war on the first family through an orchestrated media campaign of calumny by sponsoring pseudo accounts to write and defame my children and myself.
“Based on Garba Shehu’s misguided sense of loyalty and inability to stay true and loyal to one person or group, it has become apparent that all trust has broken down between him and my family due to the many embarrassments he has caused the presidency and the first family.
“We all have families to consider in our actions and therefore it is in the best interest of all concerned for Garba Shehu to take the advice of the authority, given to him sometimes in the first week of November, 2019.”
Put Your House In Order, PDP Mocks Buhari
Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday mocked President Buhari over the first lady, Aisha Buhari’s outburst.
Challenging President Buhari to put his house in order, PDP said that the public outburst by the first lady is another sad commentary that further exposes president’s incompetence and why governance has failed in his hands.
The party, in a statement by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, said that the development has also exposed President Buhari’s failure to lead and enforce an organised governance structure, and that the governance of “our nation has been ceded to the chaotic and selfish whims of a cabal.
“It is indeed appalling that under President Buhari, our once productive and highly organised presidency has been bastardized and reduced to Kunle Bamtefa’s soap opera, Fuji House of Commotion.
“Instead of governance, the Buhari presidency has continued to serve Nigerians and the international community with tragicomedies that make mockery of leadership.
“Nigerians can now further see why nothing works under the Buhari presidency; why the administration has remained shambolic and plagued with policy summersaults and executive recklessness; why our economy has remained comatose and why our nation has been dangerously drifting to the brinks under President Buhari’s watch.
“Indeed, the Buhari presidency has proven to be a huge national embarrassment and a big problem for our nation.
“Never in the history of our nation has the office, essence and symbol of Nigeria’s presidency been so stripped and ridiculed.”
The PDP urged President Buhari to immediately put his house in order and save the nation further embarrassments under his very incompetent, disorderly and messy regime.
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