US President, Donald Trump, has reportedly claimed that President Muhammadu Buhari is a ‘lifeless’ person.
Trump is scheduled to welcome Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta to the White House on Monday for what will be only the second one-on-one meeting the US president has held with an African leader since he took office last year.
According to Financial Times, the first meeting, with Nigeria’s ailing 75-year-old Muhammadu Buhari in April, ended with the US president telling aides he never wanted to meet someone so lifeless again, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Advocates of closer US-Africa ties hope his encounter with the younger, more urbane Mr. Kenyatta, 56, will breathe fresh life into a relationship with a region that Washington is seen to have neglected as other countries, notably China, develop ever-closer trade and investment ties with the continent.
Under Emmanuel Macron, France is also trying to reset its relationship with its former colonies in Africa and deepen commercial ties with bigger economies in the Anglosphere, such as Nigeria and South Africa.
“Trump likes chemistry,” said a person in touch both with senior US administration officials and the Kenya delegation preparing for Monday’s meeting. “Africa has never been high on his radar but if the big guy likes you he’ll find a way to make things work.”
Meanwhile, the report has drawn varied reactions from Nigerians ranging from sarcasm to outright condemnation.
Afenifere on Monday said Nigeria needs a young, strong and agile president come 2019.
The National Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin, said this while reacting to the alleged statement by US President, Donald Trump that President Muhammadu Buhari is “lifeless”
Odumakin in a statement said Buhari is not qualified to be the President as the job of managing the affairs of Nigeria is not for somebody in a vegetative status.
He stated that Trump’s statement shows that Buhari’s handlers are not showing Nigerians the real situation of things.
His statement reads: “If someone who wants to be president of Nigeria had to be trekking 800 metres to convince us that he is fit, I have always pointed to the fact that it is an evidence that there is something wrong.
“And now if the President of America could make that kind of observation, it is clear that the situation of things is not what the president’s handlers want us to believe.
“Someone that went to spend months in hospitals, that is going on medical vacation every now and then to London, clearly something is wrong.
“The job of the Nigerian president is not the job for anybody that is vegetative. We need a strong, agile president come 2019.”
But predictably, Buhari’s political camp responded thus:
President Muhammadu Buhari is fit and capable to run for the 2019 elections and oversee the affairs of the country for four more years President Donald Trump’s hate speech notwithstanding.
The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) made this assertion in response to the report by the Financial Times that the American President had made disrespectful comments imputing ill health on President Buhari.
The group, in a statement signed by Niyi Akinsiju and Cassidy Maduekwe, its Chairman and Secretary respectively, noted that that was not the first time the US President was heard to make such derogatory remarks at World leaders, and thus President Buhari would not be distracted by it.
“We are aware that President Trump’s disrespect for World leaders is not new; his comments on Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, calling him ‘meek and mild’; his reference to Germany’s Leader, Angela Merkel’s actions as ‘insane’, or his outlandish Tweet at the UK’s Theresa May, and more recently, the alleged remarks he made after meeting President Buhari.”
“It is indeed not the first time President Trump would be heard to lower the standards of respect for his colleagues on the World Stage. We are not surprised, we know that this age-long character of the US President would not change anytime soon. But it is important that we put it on record that President Buhari remains fit and sprightly, even for the next decade,” the statement said.
“We recall that during President Buhari’s visit to Trump in the White House, the US President commended the successes that the Buhari administration had recorded especially in the fight against insurgency and the war on corruption. The US President was full of admiration for Nigeria’s President during the visit, thus such outlandish remarks as reported by the Financial Times are not just to be taken with a pinch of salt but are untrue in themselves.”
The group noted that President Buhari has continued to show fitness and capacity to run the country post-2019; it went further to highlight that though the President’s 800-metre walk, where he acknowledged the cheers of members of his constituency, was not intended at showboating, it was an unscripted reference point that further proves a fit and lively President.
The group noted that President Buhari would not be distracted by this report, whether it was indeed said or in fact unsaid, but would in his character continue to remain focused on his mandate to deliver on his promises to the Nigerian people.