by Musa Abdullahi
The president elect has issued a red card to serving top government officials who in recent times besieged his residence in Daura, Katsina to lobby for retention of their positions.
Buhari, was livid last week when the current Comptroller-General of Customs, Abdullahi Dikko Inde, visited his residence in Daura to pay homage.
Reports according to sources say the customs boss who coincidentally hails from, Musawa Local Government Area, Katsina state immediately after informing the President-Elect of his mission was advised to go back to his duty post.
Dikko, shocked by Buhari’s response tried unsuccessfully to inform the retired General of the situation at all Nigeria’s borders, seaport and the airports, but the President-elect upbraided the 55 year-old that the ideal procedure is to wait until he has been sworn in as president, describing the visit as unhealthy, unethical and disloyalty to a government he is still serving.
He thereafter asked the customs boss to leave his residence, rejecting also his gift items.
The Comptroller general and his team hurriedly left the residence, parking the valuables and gifts items along.
The visit of the current Commandant-General of the NSCDC, Ade Abolurin, on Sunday was more comical, he arrived Daura, the residence of the President-Elect with top officers of the corps, photographers and some members of the press.
According to a member of the Buhari Campaign from Katsina, “The President-Elect was having his normal quiet time when the delegation arrived”. The corps officers led by its commandant were left outside in the scorching sun for over an hour, before the commandant and two corps officers were allowed entry into the President-elect’s visitors room
Abolurin, still recuperating from a fire burn incident got the shock of his life when an aide of Buhari, said that the retired General wants him out of his residence and will not be seeing him.
Dumbfounded the corps officers left in a haste to the surprise of other delegation members outside, who were waiting and hoping to see the president-elect and take photographs with him.
Private business tycoons are not left out of the visits, Forte Oil CEO, Femi Otedola, and Oando boss Adewale Tinubu also visited Buhari last week.
The national leader of the APC, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, shortly before the governorship elections brought the Chagoury brothers to meet with the president-elect in a closed door meeting.
Nigeria’s Former Head of State’s Home, General Abdulsalami Abubakar is now the location for most Chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party members who are lobbying not to go to jail.
Nigeria’s Petroleum Minister had also visited Abdulsalami seeking Amnesty by the new regime led by Muhammadu Buhari.
If elected Nigeria’s president in 2015, former military leader, Muhammadu Buhari, will not immediately go after past leaders, politicians and officials, who stole the country dry and committed other offences, his party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, had said.
Mr. Buhari will be more focused on solving Nigeria’s many problems left behind by the former leaders, APC chairman, John Oyegun, said.
“The first moments of a Buhari Presidency, the outlook is on the future,” said Mr. Oyegun. “The message will be clear, whatever you engage in before that is detrimental to the people of this country, please stop it, change has come.”
Mr. Buhari’s anti-corruption record as military leader is seen as his strongest credential .
Kudos to Gen. Buhari. I would have done the same myself. I just can’t stand hypocrites and corrupt people. If you’re good you have nothing to fear. Lobbying to retain his position and bringing gifts obviously shows how corrupt the Customs boss is. Doesn’t he know there’s a law in place that frowns on public officials accepting gifts? Obviously that law has been flouted since time ImoRiver. Time to clean up the mess.