Africa-Press – Nigeria. Activist lawyer, Maduabuchi Idam, on Tuesday tackled President Bola Tinubu over the declaration of a public holiday to honour the late former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Idam wondered if Tinubu was trying to inherit Buhari’s bloc votes from the North and get the blessings of Northerners by declaring a public holiday.
Buhari, a former Nigerian president, died in London on Tuesday and would be flown back to Nigeria for burial in Daura, Katsina State, today.
Tinubu’s administration had declared a national public holiday to honour Buhari.
However, Idam said declaring a public holiday to mourn the death of Buhari seems like a contrived political empathy which targets more than just honouring him.
In a statement, Idam said: “As a dispassionate thinker, I couldn’t but wonder why the declaration of a public holiday has become necessary to honour the death of the late former president, when there are many ways that he can be sufficiently mourned by the nation without needing to halt the economy for the purpose.
“In advanced climes, the highest honour the loss of a president can attract on the day of his burial is that federal flags would be flown at half-staff over federal facilities, and designates or a free mail delivery as a mark of honour and remembrance for the demise of the president.
“I am even surprised that President Tinubu’s administration, which has serially criticised and accused the late ex-president of leaving the country in a bad shape, has now arrogated to itself the position of a chief mourner who not only cries within degrees of control but hysterically rolls on the floor with both phlegm and mucus protruding from both nose and lungs.
“Except it is a careful political attempt to curry the sympathy or blessings of the Northern voters, knowing the bloc of votes associated with ex-President Buhari’s name, I will see the public holiday declaration as irritable or a needless show of honour, given that lowering the national flags at half-staff over federal facilities and designates should be honourable enough to mark his memory.”
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