First Lady Aisha Buhari has warned influence peddlers never to collect money from people who want to see the President.
She spoke on Saturday night during “an appreciation dinner at the old Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, in honour of All Progressives Congress (APC) women and youths who played a major role in President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory in the March 28 election.
She said: “There is nothing people did not say about the past administration. It is not Jonathan that is not good but the people around him.
“So, the people that are going to be around President Buhari have to be very careful because this election ended peacefully.
“We are praying and hoping that people around him should know that it took him 12 years to get to that position and they must know that they are coming to serve the masses, not President Buhari in person.
“It is the people that are around him that will determine the political health of our state.”
Stressing that the Buhari administration would run an open government, Mrs. Buhari said it would be run in clear departure from what obtained in the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration when people were allegedly asked to pay money in foreign currency before they could see the President or his wife.
She said: “I will like to inform you that in the past regime, whether it is true or false, only God knows, some people were going round and parading themselves as Personal Assistants.
“If you wanted to see the First Lady, you would pay $30,000 or $50,000 and if you were seeing the President, you would pay all that you have gathered in your lifetime.
“This will not happen in our regime. Whoever asks you to give a single penny in the name of coming to see the President or his wife is not our staff. He is not an APC member, it is a lie. Don’t be deceived.”
Noting that she did not take part in the campaigns of her husband in the first three times he contested and failed, Mrs Buhari said her active participation in the last electioneering made the difference.
According to her, APC National Leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu encouraged her to play an active role in the Buhari campaign.
She said: “Many people did not know why I was not appearing for the last three campaigns. I appeared only this time and I think it made a lot of difference. A lot of people said my husband earned four million votes as a result of my campaign.
“We were not sure but with the popularity of my husband, we thought then that he needed female support to cancel the all sorts of gender problems people have been attaching to him, like saying he kept me under a purdah.
“He had never kept me under a purdah even for a moment since I got married to him.
“Even now, by the recent campaigns, it was Bola Ahmed Tinubu who insisted that I should come out and support my husband. Not that I never liked supporting my husband but it all depended on the people around him; that was before.
“And now too, it is the people around him that showed that they wanted me to participate. We did and we have seen the difference.”
She said Buhari was the pillar of her success, despite the generation gap between the two of them, as he even encouraged her to go to school.
“My husband is a gender-sensitive human being, having so many girls as his own biological children and then having me as a wife; you can see the generation gap. He allowed me to go to school. To cut the story short, he is the pillar of my success.”
Source: The Nation
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