Buhari has responsibility to govern 200 million citizens – Presidency

The Presidency has described calls on President Muhammadu Buhari to cut ties with the South-West as a “non-issue” as he has the constitutional responsibility to govern 200 million Nigerians and not a section or sections of the country.

The Coalition of Northern Groups had on Wednesday called on the President to discontinue ties with the South-West on the grounds of allegedly not being totally committed to seeing his administration succeed.

The group stated that the South-West was a major beneficiary of the Buhari administration, but was in the forefront of the problems the administration had had to contend with in recent years.

Citing the recent #RevolutionNow protests, the group said the northerners opted not to be part of the protests because they believed that dialogue could resolve issues as against outright confrontation with government.

The group, in a statement by its Spokesman, Mr Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, also advised the President to apologise to Nigerians over the state of the nation and move on with his policies to address the current challenges.

But, the Presidency told Sunday PUNCH not TheNigerialawyer in an interview that Buhari had more serious issues to address than to listen to calls to sever ties with a segment of Nigeria.

“When you have the business of running the affairs of a nation populated by 200 million people, do you have time for non-issues such as this one being raised?

“For this President, running Nigeria is a serious business”, the President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu, said in a response to an enquiry by Sunday PUNCH.