President Buhari says he did not call Nigerians criminals

– Presidency says President Buhari's statement
was misconstrued
– Asks Nigerians to read the full text of the
interview before reaching conclusions
– Insists that the president would have
implicated himself as a criminal with the said
statement
President Muhammadu Buhari did not call Nigerians
criminals as is being speculated in some quarters.
President Muhammadu Buhari has denied claims by
some Nigerians that he called them criminals during
a recent interview which he granted The Telegraph in
the United Kingdom
on February 5, 2016.
The social media had been awash with reports of the
Nigerian president referring to Nigerians as
criminals, stating that it is the reason they are not
allowed to stay in those foreign countries.
The reports even received a backlash from Senator
Ben Murray-Bruce, who lambasted President Buhari
over such statements, adding also that one of his
mini
sters reportedly hosted a dinner for about N80
million.
The presidency has now swiftly reacted to the reports
about him calling Nigerians criminals, saying that his
statement during the interview with the UK
newspaper was misconstrued by Nigerians with each
individual giving it different interpretations.
Malam Garba Shehu, the senior special assistant to
president on media and publicity, in a press
statement issued on Tuesday, February 9, explained
that the wave of negative reactions to the president's
remarks about the reputation of Nigerians abroad
was as a result of an incomplete understanding of
President Buhari's point.
He wrote: "President Buhari was asked about the
flood of migrants from Nigeria and the fraudulent
applications for asylum put in by people desperate to
leave their motherland at any cost, and it was this
question that elicited his response."
Malam Shehu added that it was preposterous for
anyone to imagine that the President of Nigeria
would describe all the citizens of the country he leads
as criminals, when he himself is a Nigerian, obviously
not a criminal, and when there are many Nigerians of
honest living making their country proud all over the
world.
He added: "Unfortunately, there are also Nigerians
giving their country a bad image abroad, and it is to
those Nigerians that the President referred in his
comments," noting that people may play politics and
online games with the President's comments, but the
fact of the matter remains that Nigeria's reputation
abroad has been severely damaged by her own
citizens.
"These Nigerians who leave their country to go and
make mischief on foreign shores have given the rest
of us a bad reputation that we daily struggle to
overcome.
"President Buhari is very aware of the problems the
people of Nigeria face both at home and abroad, and
he is not shying away from admitting them even as
he focuses on solutions to bring them to a
permanent end."
Meanwhile, President Buhari's Chief Security Officer
(CSO), Bashir Abubakar has issued a circular titled
'Use of tinted cars around the Presidential Villa,
Abuja'.
Abubakar ordered all tinted cars and other vehicles
to be systematically searched in a bid to improve the
security in the presidential villa
.
He stated that the most of the main attacks by
terrorist groups around the world against high
profile targets were done with stolen or tinted cars.
The document reads in part: "It has been observed
that some staff of the Presidential Villa driving tinted
cars, especially security personnel are in the habit of
refusing to wind down their windscreen for security
checks before driving into the villa.