Lai: It’s only in Nigeria that citizens wish their president dead every day

Amidst unending rumours that President Muhammadu Buhari is dead, the minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, has described the reports as “silly” and “uncharitable”.

“I don’t want to lend my voice to a very silly thing. I will not join this debate. I think there are more serious issues of state to discuss than this issue,” he said on Wednesday after the federal executive council meeting.

“It’s only in this part of the world that you wake up in the morning and you say the president of the country is dead. I will not join that kind of debate at all.”

He said it is only in Nigeria that citizens wake up in the morning “to wish their ‎president dead”.

Mohammed later issued a statement, urging Nigerians to disregard the “subversive messages orchestrated by those who feel threatened by the emerging order”.

He said the “naysayers” have also resorted to the use of ethnicity and religion as tools to divide Nigerians, overheat the polity and cause panic among the citizenry, in addition to using fake news and disinformation to distort government activities.

”The source/sources of the fabricated messages are already being investigated and the authors should prepare to face the consequences of their actions,” read the statement issued by Segun Adeyemi, Mohammed’s spokesman.

”The emerging trend of resorting to destabilization and scare-mongering is not unexpected, considering this government’s clamp-down on the corrupt elements in the society, the plugging of all financial leaks which has derailed the gravy train of the looters of public treasury and the enthronement of probity and transparency in
the polity.

”While we will neither stifle press freedom nor abridge the citizens’ right to express themselves freely, whether through criticism or protests, the security agencies will neither allow any resort to violence nor a willful subversion of the state for whatever reason.”

Tony Anenih, former chairman of the PDP board of trustees, has also condemned the rumours.

“This attitude of doing false reports about the death of our leaders has become characteristic in the media and it is not good. I was a victim of this in May last year when I was reported to have died in a London hospital,” he said.

“Former President Ibrahim Babangida was also a victim of such sinister rumoured death last year. I wonder what those behind the false and mischievous reports intended to gain from them.

“Fabricating such negative and false reports of death about fellow human beings is wicked and ungodly. It is clearly against Biblical admonition that we should pray for leaders and people in authority.

“At this time of economic recession, rather than wish President Buhari dead, Nigerians should fervently pray for him to enjoy good health to be able to take the country out of the woods.

“The masterminds of these false reports should desist from such despicable act that only portrays them as inhuman. They should fear God, ask for His mercy and forgiveness so that they do not invite the wrath of God upon their heads.”

Buhari was first reported dead on Sunday, and the rumours keep resurfacing every day.