Activist rejects Buhari’s old age excuse

By CHIKA NWABUEZE

A renowned human rights activist and executive chairman, Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice (CHRSJ), Comrade Adeniyi Alimi Sulaiman, has rejected the old age excuse of the President and Commander-in- Chief Armed Forces, Muhammadu Buhari to deliver on his electioneering campaign promises.

Buhari was credited to have said that his performance will be limited due to his age, and wished he was younger now to drive the ship of the state.

Speaking against the backdrop of the recent statement credited to President Buhari that “At 72, There’s a limit to what I can do” in governance, Comrade Sulaiman, disagreed with the
President that such an excuse was not tenable before the Nigeria public, stressing that Buhari knew quite alright that he was an old man of over 70 years of age before he requested for the
votes of the Nigeria masses on Saturday March 28, 2015, which Nigerians gave him.

He maintained that Buhari should not renege in his ‘Change promise’ of all facets of Nigeria during the electioneering campaign, while condemning Mr. President’s style of governance since his inauguration on May 29th,2015, which  was characterized  by different excuses.

According to the statement issued and signed by the rights activist, and made available to Hallmark, he called on Nigerians to rise up to put Mr. President on his toes to fulfill his electioneering campaign promises. He added that the expectations of Nigeria people from the new administration were high and that the President should be ready to deliver on his electioneering campaign promises without further delaying.

“All these excuses from President Muhammadu Buhari are not tenable because age has nothing to do with the performance in governance. By now, Buhari should have come out with his government agenda and begin to be executing it one by one; anything short of this is not tenable before Nigeria people. Buhari knows that he is an old man of over seventy two (72) years and offered himself for election and is now coming up with the flimsy excuses of old age, as hindrance to perform in governance”.

The group believed that President Buhari should focus on security, employment generation, power generation, corruption and host of others, calling on well meaning Nigerians to prevail on Mr. President to face the governance of the country squarely, instead of travelling out of the country without bringing anything positive to the country.

Sulaiman therefore urged President Buhari to pick the people of impeccable character into his cabinet as part of his anti-corruption drive and direct the anti-graft bodies, the Economic and Finance Crime Commission (EFCC) and Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related offences Commission (ICPC) to investigate all the financial transactions of all the states in the federation that failed to pay its workforce for period of three to 11 months.