Apr. 17, 2014
SaharaReporters, New York
Former Military President of Nigeria and three-time presidential aspirant, General Muhammadu Buhari has threatened to institute legal action against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) should the party fail, within seven days, to retract its statement linking him to terrorism in the North-East.
After Monday’s blast that claimed dozens of lives at the motor park in Nyanya, Abuja, National Publicity Secretary of the ruling Party, Olisa Metuh accused Buhari and other leaders of the All Progressives Party (APC) of masterminding the attacks for their selfish political ambitions.
But responding on Thursday, Buhari described the allegations as false and merely intended to tarnish his image and reputation in the hope of destroying his political and electoral standings, and that of his party.
“I cannot sit back and allow my image, and that of my political party be smeared by falsehood in the name of politics”, Buhari wrote in a statement he personally signed.
“The widely publicised and very serious allegations made against me by the PDP and its spokesperson, Olisa Metuh, to the effect that my utterances are responsible for the current state of insecurity and terrorism bedevilling Nigeria, are absolutely without basis.
“To support his claim, Mr. Metuh engaged in twisted logic and outright distortion — which he called facts — in which he said that I, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, beckoned on my ‘supporters to go on lynching spree’ should I lose the 2011 presidential election, as a result of which ‘an unprecedented violence broke out claiming the lives of hundreds of innocent people.
”I take very serious exception to this grave accusation against me by the PDP Publicity Secretary. It is a false allegation aimed at tarnishing my image and reputation in the hope of destroying my political and electoral standings, and that of my party, the APC, in the country”.
He argued that, firstly, it is public knowledge that Boko Haram, as a terror organisation, long preceded the 2011 presidential elections, so his utterances or lack of them on the 2011 presidential election could not therefore have created or sustained the Boko Haram insurgency.
“Secondly, the PDP Government of President Goodluck Jonathan constituted the Sheikh Ahmed Lemu Panel of Inquiry to investigate and report on the post-election violence in some parts of the country.
“The panel discharged its duties within its terms of reference and submitted its Report to the President. This Report was accepted by government and a white paper issued. Nowhere in that report, a product of thorough investigation of that unfortunate incident, was I mentioned in the remotest way to have uttered a word or acted in any form or manner that sparked off the violence. If I had, certainly that investigation would have uncovered it. The truth is that I had not.
“Thirdly, 2011 was not the first time I contested a presidential election and was declared defeated, it was the third! If I had had no cause to ‘beckon on my supporters to go on lynching spree’ in the two previous occasions, I would have had no cause to change in 2011 — and I did not”.
He maintained that Metuh deliberately misquoted the interview he granted in Hausa on 14th May 2012, in which he expressed the determination of the opposition to fight in the 2015 elections.
”I used the Hausa idiom Kare jini, Biri jini, which is a metaphor for a very tough fight. But, like the Islamic fundamentalist toga they falsely put on me because they cannot impinge on my personal and professional integrity, PDP apologists deliberately twisted this idiom to mean I called for violence”, Buhari said.
“I am not a violent person and, other than my professional calling as a soldier, I have never associated with violence; I abhor violence and have never advocated it. I have always been a law abiding person who insists on due process and the rule of law in all my private and public affairs.
“It is therefore a grave infraction to my person, personality and integrity that such a false and malicious accusation is being leveled against me by the PDP. This is dangerous politics by the ruling party and it must stop forthwith”.
