Prof Wole Soyinka, has described President Muhammadu Buhari as a "Ghost President" whose lack of empathy is written all over the security challenges plaguing the country especially in his own backyard.
He said president Buhari seem to have no idea what is going on in the country, and even when informed, his response through his 'presidential megaphones' tend to add insult to injury instead of sooth the pains of victims.
Buhari has been accused of not heeding to calls to replace his service chiefs who have yet to address the escalating insecurity in the country, and recently declined to appear before the House of Representatives over the nation's security woes.
After the slaughter of innocent farmers who were working on rice fields, in the Zabarmari area of the Borno state, the Presidency in a statement through Garba Shehu, blamed the victims for not seeking clearance before going to their farms. Shehu's drew condemnation for its insensitivity especially at a time the affected families were still mourning their dead.
Although the Presidency did sent delegation to sympathize with the Borno state government and its people, the President once again, was nowhere to be found beside releasing routine statements each time something bad happens.
Soyinka who noted that the president only seem to act when persuaded, said his actions still lacked substance.
Speaking in a statement from his Autonomous Residence of Ijegba, Idi-Aba Estate, Abeokuta, Ogun State, he said "Was it a different president who, on being finally persuaded to visit a scene of carnage, had nothing more authoritative to offer than to advice the traumatised victims to learn to live peacefully with their violators?
Speaking further, he said, "Was it a spokesman for some ghost president who chortled in those early, yet controllable stages of now systematised mayhem, gleefully dismissed the mass burial of victims in Benue State as a “staged show” for international entertainment? Did the other half of the presidential megaphone system not follow up – or was it, precede? - with the wisdom that they, the brutalised citizenry, should learn to bow under the yoke and negotiate, since “only the living” can enjoy the dividends of legal rights?"