A former head of state and a chieftain of the All
Progressives Congress (APC), Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, has issued a seven-day
ultimatum to the PDP to retract its wild accusation linking him with the Boko
Haram terrorist acts, tender an unreserved public apology to him or face a
legal action.
Read his statement below:
"I cannot sit back and allow my image, and that of my
political party be smeared by falsehood in the name of politics.
"To support his claim, Mr. Metuh engaged in twisted logic
and outright distortion, which he called facts in which he said that I, Gen. Muhammadu
Buhari, beckoned on my ‘supporters to go on lynching spree’ should I lose the
2011 presidential election, as a result of which ‘an unprecedented violence
broke out claiming the lives of hundreds of innocent people.
"I take very serious exception to this grave accusation
against me by the PDP Publicity Secretary. It is a false allegation aimed at
tarnishing my image and reputation in the hope of destroying my political and
electoral standings, and that of my party, the APC, in the country.
"Firstly, it is public knowledge that Boko Haram as a terror
organization long preceded the 2011 presidential elections. My utterances or
lack of them on the 2011 presidential election could not therefore have created
nor sustained the Boko Haram insurgency.
"Secondly, the PDP Government of President Goodluck Jonathan
constituted the Sheikh Ahmed Lemu Panel of Inquiry to investigate and report on
the post-election violence in some parts of the country. The panel discharged
its duties within its terms of reference and submitted its Report to the
President. This Report was accepted by government and a Whitepaper issued. Nowhere
in that Report, a product of thorough investigation of that unfortunate
incident, was I mentioned in the remotest way to have uttered a word or acted
in any form or manner that sparked off the violence. If I had, certainly that
investigation would have uncovered it. The truth is that I had not.
"Thirdly, 2011 was not the first time I contested a
presidential election and was declared defeated, it was the third! If I had had
no cause to ‘beckon on my supporters to go on lynching spree’ in the two
previous occasions, I would have had no cause to change in 2011-and I did not,”
Gen. Buhari said.
"I used the Hausa idiom ‘Kare jini, Biri jini’, which is a
metaphor for a very tough fight. But, like the Islamic fundamentalist toga they
falsely put on me because they cannot impinge on my personal and professional
integrity, PDP apologists deliberately twisted this idiom to mean I called for
violence.
"I am not a violent person and, other than my professional
calling as a soldier, I have never associated with violence, I abhor violence
and have never advocated it. I have always been a law abiding person who
insists on due process and the rule of law in all my private and public
affairs.
"It is therefore a grave infraction to my person,
personality and integrity that such a false and malicious accusation is being
leveled against me by the PDP. This is dangerous politics by the ruling party
and it must stop forthwith," Gen. Buhari said.
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