Senate President, Saraki Reacts To Aisha Buhari's Explosive Interview

Some serious political development is taking place in Abuja following the controversial interview by Aisha Buhari on the state of her husband, President Muhammadu Buhari's government.

In his reaction, Senate President Bukola Saraki today said he had been vindicated by the outburst of Aisha Buhari about her husband’s leadership.

Saraki said the fact that Aisha could come out and openly express reservations about her husband’s appointees showed that his earlier argument that the government had been hijacked, was true.

Saraki had on June 27 said individuals within Buhari’s government are running a “government within the government”.

“It has become clear that there is a government within the government of President Buhari who have seized apparatus of executive powers to pursue their nefarious agenda,” Saraki said at the time.

The Presidency pushed back against the comments, saying they are figments of Saraki’s imagination.

But in a controversial interview with the BBC, Mrs. Buhari appeared to agree with Saraki’s position.

She criticised her husband’s choices of cabinet members and heads of agencies. The president's wife said her husband packed his cabinet with people he barely knew, suggesting that the government had been hijacked.

She said she may not support her husband’s re-election if the president failed to shake up his cabinet.

According to PT, Saraki’s comments were conveyed by a tweet posted by his media aide, Bamikole Omisore, on Friday morning.

He said Mrs. Buhari’s comment came “months apart” from Mr. Saraki’s own complaint about “the same thing”.

He said President Buhari and those who criticised Saraki at the time he made the comments should understand that both the president’s wife and Saraki meant well for the administration.

Speaking with PT, Saraki's aide said, “It is true that we still believe that there’s a government within the government. 

"We do believe that the president has good intention and we’re behind him. But a situation where a few people are in charge does not bode well for the image and the future of our country.”

He continued, “Mrs. Buhari is our mother and she has come out to say that the way things are being run, where APC manifesto has been abandoned and the party completely left out of governance, should not continue.” 

Saraki has been facing corruption charges at the Code of Conduct Bureau since September 2015.