Group says Buhari too busy, can’t respond to El’Rufai

The Buhari Media Support Group (BMSG) has dismissed an open letter by the Kaduna state governor to President Muhammadu Buhari, saying the president “is too busy to respond.”

The governor had written a 32-page memo to the president to caution him and his party for not delivering on the change promises made to Nigerians.

In a statement signed yesterday in Abuja by the coordinator of BMSG, Malam Muhammad Labbo, the group said the president “is too busy to be distracted by the memo written to him by Kaduna state governor, Nasir El-Rufai.”

The statement also dismissed insinuations that the president is intolerant of critics, stressing that Buhari has shocked his critics “with an amazing tolerance in the face of extreme provocations caused by unprintable personal attacks.”

According to the statement, contrary to accusations of President Buhari’s dictatorial disposition, no critic of his government, his policies as well as those who insulted him personally on social and traditional media have been arrested or harassed.

It added that President Buhari had shown a “thick skin” despite cases of deliberate and malicious personal attacks by political opponents, adding that not once did the president go after anybody for criticizing him.

The statement explained that the president had never tagged any party member as an enemy because the person publicly criticized his policies.

Laboo further stated that as a democrat, President Buhari would continue to accommodate decency, adding that the president had not and would never use the party machinery to fight any perceived critic pointing that the president is so focused on his change agenda and how to make life better for Nigerians and would not allow himself to be distracted by the load of negativities being churned out by critics.

“Unhealthy cynicism that constantly focuses on discrediting and playing down the achievements of the Buhari administration is not what our democracy desires, just as praying for the government to fail is not desirable,” the statement added.