President Muhammadu Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and
Publicity, Femi Adesina, has described his principal as a stingy but generous
man.
Adesina said Buhari does not throw money at things or allow
misappropriation of public funds like former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
In a statement titled “Buhari at 79: Lessons, we’ve learnt
from him,” Adesina, however, said the President knows how to give when
necessary.
According to Adesina: “The President lives in a modest house in Daura, Katsina State, unlike Obasanjo who owns a 50-bedroom hilltop mansion, presidential libraries.
“Honesty is the best policy,’ I can recall my father, that
great educationist, drumming it into the ears of his children daily. And he
lived it, showing us an example. Today, I’ve seen another honest man, the Mai
Gaskiya.
“He has been everything possible, held positions which could
have made him stinking rich: Governor of a territory which now covers six
states. Minister of Petroleum for over three years. Head of State. Chairman of
Petroleum Trust Fund, with billions of naira in his care.
“A civilian President, running out his second term of four
years each, in another 17 months. And yet he remains a man of modest means. Let
me tell you a story. Have you been to the Buhari home in Daura? Modest, modest,
modest, is what the structure shouts at you, as you approach.
“The furnishing; modest. The locale itself; modest. The
appurtenances; modest.
“It is said that President Buhari had used a carpet in that
house for almost 20 years. He knew every bit of furniture and fittings like the
back of his hands. And then, one day, in his first term as President, he
visited home, and a new carpet was in place. Who changed my carpet?
“That was the first question he asked, as he stepped into
the house? Imagine the President of Africa’s most powerful country, the largest
economy on the continent, having time to ask about a carpet that had become old
and threadbare? But that is Muhammadu Buhari for you. Simple man, if ever there
was one
“We know of the 50 bedroom hilltop mansion (even if slightly
exaggerated) where his former colleagues live. And we know of presidential
libraries and other mansions built by somebody else, through what Nobel
Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, called “executive extortionism.” But not all
these trappings for Buhari. Scant regards for material things, what I recall my
father describing as “shadows of life.”
“Stingy but generous. President Buhari is very thrifty. He
does not throw money at things, and as his media adviser, I can tell you. He
even pokes fun at himself, saying; “don’t you know I’m very stingy?”
“True. He doesn’t waste public money. He won’t
misappropriate, and neither would he let you, if he knows about it. But when he
needs to give, he does. I have personal experiences, which I’ve related before.
I won’t repeat them, lest some people ask me to bring part of it, as they’ve
done before. Lol.”
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