Tinubu’s Newspaper Chair Slams Buhari: ‘He Valued Cows Over Nigerians’

Chairman of editorial board for The Nation, a newspaper owned by President Bola Tinubu, Sam Omatseye has accused former president Muhammadu Buhari as a leader who valued animals and himself than Nigerians.

Omatseye, a veteran journalist, described Buhari’s administration as anticlimax marked by economic failure, bigotry, self-interest, and squandered public trust.

He noted that Peter Enahoro, a celebrated journalist known as Peter Pan, had described the former president as ‘deceptively gentle’ in the 1980s.

Omatseye said: “We have never had a leader like Muhammadu Buhari, and we may never have one like him again.

“I thought Buhari would bring his spartan charm and blend it with men of thinking and energy on the front row while he ran the country as a czar of corruption and due process.

“And that was the anticlimax of having him at the helm. He would govern with a purifying shadow, a sort of secular priest with his aura both cheering and chastening.

“On the economy, he stood guard over a government that had no way to generate money except by printing and borrowing from China, among others.

“He gave us a debt of over N30 trillion in Ways and Means and several billions of dollars.

“Rather, he worsened the situation, and created an economy that had to be saved from itself.

“Buhari, in the end, turned out to be a man who looked after one man: Muhammadu Buhari.

“It was hypocritical that he did not even tell now President Tinubu that he did not want him as his successor.

“Rather he put his weight behind former Senate president Ahmad Lawan. It reflected his lack of integrity, and even blatant hypocrisy as a leader.

“Since Peter Pan’s characterization in the 1980’s, in his first time as leader, Buhari changed his image as a sublime chameleon in many ways.

“He was loved by both cow and man. He did less for man than cow, but cows never had a way of gratitude known to man, except men like him, perhaps.”