By Jammil Suleh
Son of late Muhammadu Buhari GCFR, the immediate-past President of Nigeria, Yusuf Buhari, has lamented that people have deserted him even shortly after the dead of his father.
In a statement circulating in the media, the late former President’s son who chronicled how his telephone line was always buzzing shortly after then President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan called his father to congratulate him in the heat of the 2015 presidential election, said from that moment, he used to receive as much as two thousand calls per day.
Yusuf Buhari took time to explain what life has truly become after he left the corridors of power.
According to him: “After Goodluck Jonathan made that call to my dad to congratulate him on his victory as Nigeria’s next President.
I used to receive up to 2,000 calls a day from different people. The calls would start coming in as early as 4 a.m. — from old classmates, acquaintances, extended family relatives, former maids, and servants who had once worked for the Buhari family at some point”.
Yusuf narrated that in those days, his aide used to come up with polite excuses to end some phone conversations with what he described as “untraceable explanations”, adding that those calls started dropping the moment current President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu took over from his father.
“There were also callers with bogus, untraceable explanations, but my assistant would simply come up with polite excuses to end those conversations quickly!
But the moment my dad left power and handed the baton to His Excellency Bola Tinubu, the calls dropped dramatically to about 100 a day”, Yusuf was quoted to have said.
The former Nigeria’s ‘First Son’ concluded that the situation even became worst after the death and burial of his, saying that his phone no longer rang.
“After my dad was buried, they reduced even further to around 20 daily — usually just from siblings and business associates.
The phones no longer ring. Nobody truly cares…”
Muhammadu Buhari was President of Nigeria between 2015 and 2023 on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC, after defeating then sitting President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan who was candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.
Buhari died last year in a UK hospital where he had visited for his routine medical treatment.
