For residents, indigenes and guests of Anambra state, eastern Nigeria, Saturday, January 23, will go down as a day in history, when they were disappointed by their president.
The reason for this is that they had anticipated the visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to pay a condolence visit to the family of one of his ministers, Dr Chris Ngige, who buried his late father on Friday, January 22, 2016, in Alor community in the state.
ADVERTISEMENT
As early as 7.00am, there had been signs that the people were expecting the Nigerian president, who had been billed to pay a personal condolence visit to the Ngiges alongside, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo; Senate president, Bukola Saraki; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, among other prominent Nigerians.
Is he still coming? Senator Chris Ngige and his elder brother seem to be asking each other. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi.
The streets, were however, very quiet, as there were no security details sighted anywhere around, all of which negated the usual practice of random security checks ahead of the president’s expected visit to any part of the country. This seeming anomaly raised suspicion about the possibility of the president not attending the event.
The suspicions were further fueled by Ngige’s statement on Friday, when he said the president was provisionally meant to attend, a statement which his elder brother, Chief Edwin Ngige also corroborated, when he said: “Let us wait until he comes before I make any comment.”
And expectant residents were all set to welcome the president later in the day, but were all stunned as visitor after visitor came to pay condolence visits to their esteemed son whom they fondly referred to as ‘Onwa’, but the Nigerian leader was nowhere to be found.
Naij.com scooped later that the Secretary General to the Federation Babachir Lawal, had represented the president during the church service for the late centurion at the St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Friday, an indication which clearly showed that Buhari was not likely to attend.
In fact, the dignitaries sighted with the former governor were Sir Alex Ekwueme, a former vice president of the country; Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC); Chief John Oyegun, the national chairman of the APC, among others.
Naij.com gathered a few pictures of expectant indigenes during the event that took place today and present them below:
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Credit: Naij.com
No comments:
Post a Comment