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Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, has said some of the persons vilifying the president publicly during the day return to Aso Rock for dinner.
The presidential spokesman said this while commenting on the return of former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Fani-Kayode has been under fire since last week when the Chairman of the APC National Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) and governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni, presented him to Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Members of both the APC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have hurled insults at Fani-Kayode over his defection.
But in his weekly article,’ From the Inside,’Adesina said Buhari has a capacity to forgive and forget and the manner in which he received Fani-Kayode showed this.
“FFK is by no means a miscellaneous personality, and whatever he does, or does not do, attracts loads of attention.
“He was a founding member of the APC, before he ported back to the PDP. And he did not leave quietly. He ruffled feathers and stirred up the mud. He became a rabid hater of his former party and its members.
“Between last week and now, vitriol poured by FFK on anybody with the slightest affinity to APC has been dug up serially. He has said things straight from the gutters, things that the natural man would call unforgivable and unpardonable.
“Against President Buhari, the first family, Yusuf Buhari whom he wished had died when the latter had an almost fatal bike accident, APC as a party, the government, leaders of the party, groups and individuals. Even this writer has suffered horrid descriptions from FFK in many write-ups.
“Yes, he even said he would rather die than return to APC, but last week, he returned—well and alive.
“Naturally, a lot of loyal APC members are hopping mad that FFK was readmitted into the party. And not only that, he got back at the highest level. Not at his ward in Ile-Ife, Osun State, but the triumphal entry was at the Presidential Villa, with President Buhari himself as the host.
“I understand the umbrage taken against the development by teeming APC supporters. It’s the natural thing to do. But then, having vented spleen, raised dust and almost brought down the roof, the next thing is to isolate the issues dispassionately. With the bile displayed towards President Buhari and his family over the years, how did the man find the grace to have received FFK? How was he convinced? Who did the convincing? What were the extenuating factors? How? When? Why?” he said.
According to Adesina, by agreeing to the readmission of FFK to APC as the leader of the party, and hosting him at the Villa, Buhari displayed amazing capacity to forgive, to show mercy, and let bygones be bygones.
He said while some persons had formed the habit of lying that Buhari has an unforgiving spirit, the president has proved them wrong with his action.
The presidential spokesperson added that aside Fani-Kayode, Buhari has hosted and dined with some of the persons who condemned him in public.
“I have worked with the President for over six years. And I have seen amazing things in terms of accommodation and capacity to forgive.
“I have visited him at home many times in the evenings, only to find at dinner table with him people who had been abusing his forefathers on television earlier in the day. This President has a capacity to forgive, and forget. And make peace.
“That was what he displayed in the case of FFK. Nothing short of divine attribute, which me and you should covet and seek to approximate,” he said.