Mr. Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has taken a swipe at a former head of state, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), for obtaining a loan of N27.5m to procure his party’s expression of interest and nomination form to contest the 2015 presidential election.
Buhari, an All Progressives Congress presidential aspirant had on October 16, 2014 picked the nomination form at the National Secretariat of the APC in Abuja, barely 24 hours after he officially declared his ambition to run for the number seat in Nigeria.
Speaking at the Nigeria Union of Journalists, in Abeokuta, Ogun State on Thursday, October 23, Falana described Buhari’s action as monetization of politics, adding that it was indefensible, according to the reports.
The lawyer said: “It is indefensible for Gen. Buhari to have obtained a loan facility of N27.5m just to obtain a form of intent to contest in the presidential election in 2015 under the All Progressives Congress.
“Is he going to obtain another loan during his campaign, because in Nigeria, it costs billions of naira to run a presidential campaign?”
Speaking on the current security challenges facing the country, he said Nigeria was going through such challenges because of the unemployment rate.
On the forthcoming 2015 elections, he advised journalist to be wary of phony politicians, adding that they should not favour a particular candidate but rather give all them equal coverage irrespective of ethnic group of religion.
“Journalists must show more than a passing interest on how those aspirants want to manage the economy. The government must address mass illiteracy, corruption and poverty,” he said.
He therefore called on the government to put more efforts in the fight against the security challenges plaguing the nation, just as it tackled the Ebola scourge.
Recall that President Goodluck Jonathan and the governors of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) held a closed door meeting on Sunday, October 19, 2014 in Abuja and one of the issues discussed was the presidential ambition of Buhari.
