Group: Buhari Contradicts Self Over 53 Suit Cases Saga
ABUJA, March 27, (THEWILL) - The True Democracy Advocacy Network (TRUDAN), today in Abuja said it was not surprised at the conflicting responses given by the Presidential Candidate of the Congress for Progress for Progressive Change (CPC), General Muhammadu Buhari, on the money laundering charges involving his ADC in 1984 on the 53 suit cases saga.
The group’s executive secretary, Mr David Onilede, in a statement said the conflicting responses were very typical of General Buhari who has no explanation for the lapses and arrogance exhibited by his men over the incident.
“It is a lame defense for the former Head of State who was in the driver’s seat to pass the buck to the customs officials at the airport and still ask for explanation from Atiku Abubakar, decades after the former VP had narrated the nasty experience his men passed through in the hands of Buhari’s aides on the matter.”
While Buhari admitted that he knew nothing about the 53 suit cases, he however, conceded that he directed his ADC who was at the centre of the saga to go to the airport to receive his father, the Emir of Gwandu, and the then Nigerian High Commissioner to Libya who was returning home on Buhari’s invitation to assume duty as Chief of Protocol to the Head of State.
General Buhari told correspondents in Dutse in response to the corruption charge “I did not know how many times we stopped vehicles of people coming back for their luggage to be searched. But then there was my late chief protocol, Ambassador Dahiru, he had three wives and 15 children, he was coming from Saudi Arabia from posting into a new assignment and those who counted his luggage counted them including his hand bag. You can imagine three women and 15 children and everything was counted. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar was the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) officer in charge of MMA then. So you go and ask him for the details. I was just sitting in Dodan Barracks as head of state.”
According to Onilede, what a denial of responsibility but he added that Buhari was culpable. “If a large family of 18 could overwhelm him while he merely sat at Dodan Barracks, I wonder what would happen if Buhari were to superintend over 150 million Nigerians. He will obviously go to sleep and worse things would happen,” Onilede said.
The TRUDAN scribe recalled that while Buhari closed his eyes to the 53 suit cases, the late Afro beat king Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was jailed by Buhari for being in legitimate possession of foreign currency for the maintenance of his band for an international engagement.
He added that Mr Akin Fatoyinbo, a director of an international communication agency affiliated to UNESCO was also detained for months by the Buhari junta for entering into Nigeria with some foreign currency to carry out an official assignment.