A former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Umar Gali Na’Abba, has said President Muhammadu Buhari lacks the physical and intellectual ca
A former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Umar Gali Na’Abba, has said President Muhammadu Buhari lacks the physical and intellectual capacity to govern Nigeria. Na’Abba said this when confirming comments attributed to him concerning calls on the President to seek a second term.
In response to a question as to whether he said the ‘President feels that since he is now in charge, everything is in order,’ Na’Abba said, “I confirm what I said in the interview with Osasu on the Ossasu TV show. The President hasn’t got the capacity, physically and intellectually to govern Nigeria this is my honest opinion. He will not get my support should he seek a second term come 2019.
Na’Abba added, “I had the opportunity of sitting with the President to tell him that this is what is wrong but he told me that things were wrong before but with his election, everything is right now. That was what he told me and I was very disappointed.”
The ex-speaker said Buhari refused to carry the APC leaders along because he believed that all politicians were evil. He said the President only recently decided to appoint party members into boards because he was seeking re-election.
The ex-lawmaker said, “I decided to move back to the APC from the PDP to support him because from his utterances, I believed he wanted to add value to democracy and this is three years into his administration and he doesn’t work with the party, he regards party members as evil, he doesn’t work with anybody, he doesn’t consult with anybody in the party.
“I am a member of the Board of Trustees of the party even though we don’t have it officially. We had a meeting of such a board or whatever you call it in February 2016. That meeting was only called again in November 2017 when he decided that he wanted to get re-elected and he needs us. He promised to reconstitute boards. He had earlier refused to do that because he believed politicians were responsible for all the evil in this country and he also promised to increase the number of ministers. In a nutshell, the President has not added value to democracy by an inch.”
Na’Abba said he was aware that about seven governors had endorsed the President’s re-election bid. He, however, argued that the governors were acting alone, without the support of their state chapters since no one was consulted before the endorsement. But the Presidency may not be surprised at the outburst of Na’Abba. Rather, it is expecting that as the next elections draw nearer, more chieftains of the ruling APC will still go public to support Na’Abba’s position.
