Idiagbon, example of loyalty to boss, country -Buhari

By Lawrence Olaoye

President Muhammadu Buhari has described late Gen. Tunde Idiagbon as an example of loyalty to a fatherland and a superior.
This is coming as the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has said that the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, who recently dumped the ruling party for the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) alongside his loyalists, has become history in the politics of the state.
According to a statement made available to newsmen yesterday by his spokesman, Femi Adesina, Buhari described his late deputy while he as the military head of state between 1983 and 1985 when he was toppled as a “strong, loyal and extremely committed to the cause of positively changing the narrative about Nigeria, which the administration set out to do at that time.”
Buhari, while receiving the APC governorship aspirant, Abdulrahman Abdulrazak, and members of the party from the three senatorial zones of Kwara State at State House, recalled how his former deputy, who, while on pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia when the administration was overthrown in 1985, insisted on returning to the country despite the political uncertainty especially as he had learnt that he, as Commander-in-Chief at that time, had not been killed in the take-over.
The President added that the late Idiagbon rejected the offer from the King of Saudi Arabia to bring members of his (Idiagbon) family from Nigeria to the Kingdom, as he was his guest at that time, and eventually returned to Nigeria to suffer arrest like he (Buhari) did.
Buhari further enjoined Nigerians to remain faithful and loyal to the country in all their dealings. “You don’t have to be in uniform to be loyal. What I said long ago in 1984 is still valid today. We have no other country but Nigeria. Others who feel they have another country may choose to go. We will stay here and salvage it together,” he said.
He thanked the APC stakeholders for the position they have taken to continue to support the party regardless of the outcome of the primaries and assured them that, with the unity displayed so far, APC will form the government in Kwara State after the 2019 elections.
The Kwara APC governorship candidate who briefed State Hohse Correspondents after the meeting with the President said “Kwara has become a battle ground and as you can see, we have come here to see Mr. President having gone through a hectic process of primaries. We went through a direct primaries in which about a hundred thousand party faithful voted.
We had our difficulties but we have come to see the President to tell him that all is well and we are in unison and he has given us matching orders to go and take Kwara.”
Asked whether they could withstand Saraki’s political hold on Kawara state, he said
“He is history, we have gone pass him and we are looking at government house.”