The Presidency, through the President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu has said that Malam Mamman Daura’s Views on Zoning are personal to him.
This is more so as permutations ahead of the 2013 presidential elections are in full swing. There are calls fro the South South and he South East that the presidency be zoned to the South East.
A few South West influencers like Fani-Kayode have backed the idea. However, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu appears to want a go at it while the North still wants to retain the number 1 position.
Mamman Daura proposed in a recent interview with BBC Hausa that Nigeria must forget zoning and rather root for competence. His position has not gone down well with Nigerians from other zones as they find his position mischievous and a calculated attempt at keeping the position for the North only.
Read: Chief Edwin Clark, Blasts Mamman Daura, Buhari’s Nephew
Garba Shehu took to defending Daura’s views. He insists that Mamman Daura is entitled to air his views as a citizen of Nigeria. Garba Shehu added that the interview Daura the BBC Hausa program was mis-translated in English and taken out of context.
In a response posted by Garba Shehu on his confirmed Twitter handle, he said:
“We have received numerous requests for comment on the interview granted by Malam Mamman Daura, President Muhammadu Buhari’s nephew to the BBC Hausa Service.
“It is important that we state from the onset that as mentioned by the interviewee, the views expressed were personal to him and did not, in any, reflect that of either the President or his administration.
“At age 80, and having served as editor and managing director of one of his country’s most influential newspapers, the New Nigerian, certainly, Malam Mamman qualifies as an elder statesman with a nation duty to hold perspectives and disseminate them as guaranteed under our constitution and laws of the land. He does not need the permission or clearance of anyone to exercise this right.
“In an attempt to circulate the content of the interview to a wider audience, the English translation clearly did no justice to the interview, which was granted in Hausa, and as a result, the context was mixed up and new meanings were introduced and/or not properly articulated.
“The issues discussed during the interview, centred around themes on how the country could birth an appropriate process of political dialogue leading to an evaluation, assessment and a democratic outcome that would serve the best interest of the average Nigerian irrespective of where they come from.
“These issues remain at the heart of our evolving and long democracy, an as a veteran journalist, scholar, and statesman, Malam Mamman has seen enough of many other perspectives.