Civil society group, Concerned Nigerians, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to sack Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa as his Senior Special Assistant on Foreign Relations and Diaspora Affairs, for calling Mr. Deji Adeyanju, its Convener, an idiot on live radio.
The call was made in a statement issued on Friday by Mr. Theophilus Abu Agada, its National Publicity Secretary.
The group noted that Mrs. Dabiri-Erewa used the abusive word during a live program on Ray Power FM because Mr. Adeyanju exposed the fraud around the Martin Luther King Jr’s Leadership Award conferred on President Buhari.
“An unrefined statement like this is unbefitting of the office Mrs.Dabiri-Erewa occupies. We find it amusing that instead of clarifying to Nigerians on the sham award, the Senior Special Assistant to the president, in her usual condescending way of responding to issues of national importance, resorted to insults and petty name-calling,” said Concerned Nigerians.
It equally noted that the presidential aide refused to apologize to Mr. Adeyanju when the anchor of the programme, Political Platform, Mr. Amaechi Anakwe, asked her to withdraw her statement.
“It is baffling that Mrs. Dabiri-Erewa, with her wealth of experience as a broadcast journalist, would on a live radio program be so boorish and uncouth,” the group said.
Concerned Nigerians contended that if Mrs. Dabiri-Erewa has any shame, she would immediately tender an unreserved apology to Mr. Adeyanju, whose only crime is to ask for accountability and transparency from her.
Concerned Nigerians recalled that it issued a statement condemning the family of the American civil rights activist, Mr. Luther King Jr’s and center established in his memory for conferring on President Buhari.
In addition to the demand for the sack of Mrs. Dabiri-Erewa, the group also called on the president to order an investigation into the allegation that she paid $3m paid for the fake award conferred on him.
The group insisted that the presidential aide and her team were incompetent for their inability to ascertain the authenticity of the award, thereby embarrassing the country and the president.
It noted that after it made phone calls and sent text messages to Martin Luther King’s Centre on the veracity of the award conferred on the president, the center replied through its official Twitter handle by saying:“The award given to President Buhari of Nigeria was not given by The King Center, at the request of The King Center or by the children of #MLK and #CorettaScottKing. @MrFixNigeria.”
