Boko Haram: Buhari threatens to sue PDP

The Custodian April 18, 2014

A former Head of State, Maj.  Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) on Thursday, gave the Peoples Democratic a seven-day ultimatum to apologise to him or face legal action for linking him with Boko Haram.

Buhari, in a statement, demanded that the party retracts  its “offensive” statement.

He said he could not sit back and allow his image and that of his political party, the APC, to be smeared through falsehood in the name of politics.

Specifically, Buhari mentioned the widely publicised   allegations   by the PDP  that his utterances were responsible for the current state of insurgency in the country.

According to him, the PDP through its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Olisa Metuh, twisted logic and engaged in outright distortion of facts.

Buhari said Metuh issued a statement “in which he said that I, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, beckoned on my ‘supporters to go on a  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.

“Firstly, it is public knowledge that Boko Haram as a terror organisation long preceded the 2011 presidential election. My 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 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 was issued.”

The former military ruler noted that there was nowhere in that report he was 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,” he said.

Buhari said since 2011 was not the first time he contested a presidential election and lost,   he had had no cause to beckon on his supporters to go on lynching spree.

The APC chief added that Metuh also deliberately misquoted the interview he gave in Hausa on May 14, 2012 in which he said the opposition was determined to fight in 2015.

“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 also said other than his professional calling as a soldier, he was not a violent person and had never been associated with any.

He, maintained that it remained a grave infraction on his person, personality and integrity that such a false and malicious accusation was being levelled against him by the PDP.

This, he said, was dangerous politics by the ruling party which must stop.

Several calls to Metuh’s mobile telephone number indicated that it was switched off.