Stop lying, Buhari promised not to seek medical treatment abroad, PDP tackles Presidency

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that it would not allow the government of President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) to fool Nigerians by trying to sidestep the promises they made during the 2015 campaigns.

The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, said in a statement in Abuja on Friday that the PDP had uncovered attempts by the ruling party and the government to play on the intelligence of Nigerians through a recent statement issued by presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina.

According to Ologbondiyan, Adesina, in the statement titled “Beware of Fake Statements Ascribed to President Buhari,” claimed that some statements credited to the president on social media were false.

Specifically referring to claims that the social media had been circulating what Adesina called “a fictive portion of the February 2015 lecture” at the Chatham House, London, Ologbondiyan said the PDP had found that the presidential spokesman was only playing on the intelligence of the people.

He said verifiable reports of the president’s London trip of February 2015, showed that he made the promises ascribed to him during a meeting with the Nigerian community in London and not in the Chatham House lecture.

He said the reports had clearly shown that the president promised not to embark on foreign medical trips and to sell jets in the presidential fleet.

“The Buhari presidency plays on the intelligence of Nigerians all the time. It is inconceivable that the handlers of President Muhammadu Buhari will want to erase the promises made to Nigerians by placing outright denials in public places.

“The PDP will continue to hold the dysfunctional All Progressives Congress (APC) and the incompetent Buhari presidency accountable to the promises they made to Nigerians,” Ologbondiyan said.

Adesina had, in a statement earlier in the week, said that some social media users were ascribing statements to Buhari.

He said: “First, it was a pernicious twisting and misinterpretation of the words of the president by mischievous elements, perhaps they can earn him opprobrium and infamy. When they see that the gambit is not achieving the desired results, they have now gone into utter fabrication of apocryphal statements, which they purvey through the social media”.

Ologbondiyan insisted that the presidency was only attempting to hoodwink Nigerians by claiming that the statement was made at Chatham House.

He declared that multiple sources had confirmed that the promises were made during a meeting with the Nigerian community in London in February 2015.