Mr. Saraki said the fact that Mrs.
Buhari could come out to openly
express reservations about her
husband’s appointees showed that
his earlier argument that the
government had been hijacked, was
in good faith.
Mr. Saraki on June 27 said some
individuals within Mr. Buhari’s
government were running a
“government within the
government”.
“It has become clear that there is a
government within the government
of President Buhari who have seized
apparatus of executive powers to
pursue their nefarious agenda,” Mr.
Saraki said at the time.
Mr. Buhari pushed back against the
comments, describing them as a
figment of Mr. Saraki’s imagination.
But in an interview with the BBC,
Mrs. Buhari appeared to agree with
Mr. Saraki’s position.
She criticised her husband’s choices
of cabinet members and heads of
agencies.
The first lady said her husband
packed his cabinet with people he
barely knew, suggesting that the
government had been hijacked.
She also said she may not support
her husband’s re-election if the
president failed to shake up his
cabinet.
Mr. Saraki’s comments were
conveyed by a tweet posted by his
media aide, Bamikole Omisore, on
Friday morning.
Mr. Omisore said Mrs. Buhari’s
comment came “months apart” from
Mr. Saraki’s own complaint about
“the same thing”.
Mr. Omisore said Mr. Buhari and
those who criticised Mr. Saraki at
the time he made the comments
should understand that both the
president’s wife and his principal
meant well for the administration.
“Aisha Buhari and Bukola Saraki
both have the best interest of
President Buhari at heart,” Mr.
Omisore said in the tweet.
Mr. Omisore further expanded on
his principal’s position in a
telephone interview with PREMIUM
TIMES on Friday morning, saying
Mr. Saraki still strongly believes that
Mr. Buhari has been sidelined by a
few men in his government.
“It is true that we still believe that
there’s a government within the
government.”
“We do believe that the president
has good intention and we’re
behind him,” Mr. Omisore said.
“But a situation where a few people
are in charge does not bode well for
the image and the future of our
country.”
Mr. Omisore said recent
development in which the Minister
of Finance openly disagreed with
the Governor of Central Bank on
economic matters clearly showed
that administration officials were
taking directives from conflicting
authorities.
“A situation where people that work
within the executive say one thing
and other people that work in the
same administration say and even
do another thing.
“It shows that people are getting
directives from different
authorities,” Mr. Omisore said.
Mr. Omisore said Nigerians should
pay attention to Mrs. Buhari’s
statement because she’s a mother
for the whole country.
“Mrs. Buhari is our mother and she
has come out to say that the way
things are being run, where APC
manifesto has been abandoned and
the party completely left out of
governance, should not continue for
too long,” Mr. Omisore said.
Mr. Saraki has been facing
corruption charges at the Code of
Conduct Bureau since September
2015.
He was also arraigned alongside his
deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, in a
separate case in which they were
accused of forgery in the Senate.
The government withdrew the case
a few days ago.
Mrs. Buhari’s explosive interview
had rattled the presidency so much
that PREMIUM TIMES
authoritatively gathered that the
officials there pressured the BBC to
step down the remaining part of the
interview.
BBC, however, vowed to run the full
exchange as scheduled.
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