Did President Buhari Refer To All Nigerians As Criminals? - See Full Text Of His Interview With The Telegraph, UK

Following President Muhammadu Buhari’s comments in an interview granted to the UK’s Telegraph newspaper on February 5, many Nigerian have expressed dissatisfaction. The presidency has described the various interpretations of the President's comments as being misconstrued.

 

In a statement today by Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, noted that the wave of negative reactions to the President’s remarks about the reputation of Nigerians abroad was a result of incomplete understanding of President Buhari’s point.

“President Buhari was asked about the flood of migrants from Nigeria and the fraudulent applications for asylum put in by people desperate to leave their motherland at any cost, and it was this question that elicited his response,” he said.

 

Mr Shehu added that it was preposterous for anyone to imagine that the president of Nigeria would describe all the citizens of the country he leads as criminals, when he himself is a Nigerian–obviously not a criminal–and when there are many Nigerians of honest living making their country proud all over the world.

“Unfortunately, there are also Nigerians giving their country a bad image abroad, and it is to those Nigerians that the President referred in his comments,” he said, adding that people may play politics and online games with the President’s comments, but the fact of the matter remains that Nigeria’s reputation abroad has been severely damaged by her own citizens. To that, I agree 

 

Excerpts from the interview;

 

A number of Nigerians use the migrant routes to come to the UK to claim asylum, saying their lives are at risk from Boko Haram. Is is legitimate for them to do so?

"Some Nigerians claim is that life is too difficult back home, but then again some Nigerians have also made it difficult for Europeans and Americans to accept them because of the number of Nigerians in different prisons all over the world accused of drug trafficking or human trafficking. I don't think Nigerians have anybody to blame. They can remain at home. Their services are required to rebuild the country. If their countrymen misbehaved, the best thing for them is to stay at home and encourage the credibility of the nation."

Do you think that Nigerians have an image problem abroad?

"Certainly. But we are on our way to salvage that. We will encourage our countrymen to stay at home, work hard and make a respectable living at home."

 

For full text of President Muhammadu Buhari's Interview to the Telegraph Newspaper, Uk, CLICK HERE