FG laments over planned smear campaign against Buhari

On Friday, the presidency raised an alarm over what it called a planned orchestrated smear campaign against President Muhammadu Buhari, using some online newspapers and blogs.

Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, made the claim in a statement titled “Unrelenting plot to a wage smear campaign against President Buhari.”

The fresh alarm is Adesina’s second in about one month having issued a similar statement in December 2020 in which he alleged a plan to smear the image of the President and portray him as not being in charge of the affairs of the government.

He had claimed then that an online platform had been procured to launch a campaign of calumny against Buhari with heavy monetary inducement while an offshore medium had been hired for the assignment.

Still toeing the line of last year’s statement, Adesina claimed in the latest statement that the planned campaign of calumny against the President is scheduled to be launched anytime soon through editorials and “purported special investigative stories.”

The presidential spokesman alleged that the plan was designed to further exacerbate tension in the land, by portraying the President as pandering to ethnic and other primordial tendencies, contrary to his pledge to belong to all Nigerians.

The statement read, “Impeccable security findings indicate that those behind the plot have procured online blogs and newspapers, which are to launch coordinated publications, alleging subjugation and suppression of a particular religion and ethnic groups.

“A specific medium has so far contacted some opinion leaders, especially those very critical of President Buhari.

“Part of the planned publication is to make unwary readers believe that the President has continually used the powers of his office to shield and protect an ethnic group against crimes of murder, kidnappings, rape and banditry in the southern, middle belt and some northern states.

“The publication will also refer Nigerians to a 58-page document, which chronicles purported atrocities of the ethnic group in the South since 2017, all of which it claims the Presidency has turned blind eyes to.

“Again, the hatchet job will allege that the President has continued to place members of his ethnic nationality in sensitive positions, so as to confer undue advantage on them. This allegation is by no means supported with reasonable facts and figures.”

Adesina recalled that Buhari had on Thursday, at a meeting with a delegation of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs led by Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, restated his even-handedness on the issues of ethnicity and religion.

He further quoted Buhari as saying at the meeting that he would not allow religious prejudice or partisanship to influence any of his regime’s decisions and policies.

“Those who are bent on stoking ethnic and religious unrest in the country remain deaf to reason and impervious to reality.