The Presidency says despite President Muhammadu Buhari’s achievements, political elites are yearning to return to the old social order of embezzlement of public funds by some political elites, and the last thing they want is “another Buhari.”

“The last thing they want is ‘another Buhari’,” claimed Garba Shehu, the president’s media aide, stated in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja. 

Mr Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo will complete eight years in office by May 2023. The latter is being promoted by his supporters as a credible successor. His political benefactor Bola Tinubu had also declared his ambition to replace the incumbent president in 2023.

“So many of the political elites of this country cannot wait for the president’s second term in office to end,” he explained. 

He further claimed that the selfish elites “yearn for a return to the good old days of helping themselves to public funds with abandon, the easy export of ill-gotten money to foreign bank accounts, of acting without responsibility, accountability, or censure. 

According to him, the politicians are eager to return to “good old days’’ of easy export of ill-gotten money to foreign bank accounts.

Even though Mr Buhari will leave office next year, “his legacy is strong and peculiarly tough to dismantle,” his media asserted.

“These (Mr Buhari’s legacy) are ‘The successful repatriation of stolen funds from decades of export abroad and its use to fund social, unemployment and welfare programmes for the poorest; reforms that have taken the steam out of centuries-long ethnic and tribal disputes – such as the farmer-herder clashes – long used to stoke ethnic and regional tensions by venial politicians for political advantage.”

Also included in the so-called Mr Buhari’s legacy is “the protection of millions through an effective vaccine roll-out programme.”

“These are just a tiny handful of the achievements of the president. But, perhaps, his greatest achievement is to break the belief that presidents of Nigeria take the office and use it to enrich themselves and their accessories at the public’s expense,” stated the aide. “That wicked spell is broken for good. And it has offended politicians everywhere.” 

(NAN)