Sirajo Saidu, one of President Muhammadu Buhari’s staunch supporters on Facebook, has dumped the President. He has now declared support for a former governor of Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso.
Saidu, from Sokoto State, said his decision was influenced by the recent abduction of five of his brothers by bandits, PREMIUM TIMES reports.
Bandits had on December 12 abducted over 20 people in separate attacks on communities in the Wurno Local Government Area of Sokoto State.
Immediately after the abduction, Saidu took to his Facebook page to announce that five of his brothers were among the 20 residents abducted.
“All the five men taken in our house are my brothers. The bandits didn’t kill anyone in our community but they took many people in that operation alone. We are waiting for them (bandits) to call for the ransom. Please include my brothers and other victims in your prayers,” he wrote in Hausa, the language he uses to communicate with his over 4,000 followers and about 5,000 friends on Facebook.
Speaking two days after the abduction, Saidu said the kidnappers had contacted the family and family members had started contributing money to pay the ransom. He, however, did not state the amount requested.
Saidu, who is popular on social media for attacking critics of the President and the All Progressives Congress (APC), said his reason for dumping Buhari was because no one helped him and his family members to raise the ransom.
“Today, being Wednesday, 29 of December 2021, I, Surajo Saidu Sokoto have dumped the Buhariyya (a Hausa coinage for Buhari supporters) team and have now joined the Kwankwasiya (a coinage for Me Kwankwaso) team. Because bandits abducted my five siblings and I posted it several times but we paid the ransom money and none of them helped me,” he wrote.
On his Facebook profile, where Buhari’s picture used to be, Saidu has now replaced it with that of Kwakwanso.
Kwankwaso, a former Kano State governor, is a member of the opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He sought the presidential ticket of the PDP in 2019 but lost to Atiku Abubakar who eventually lost in the presidential election to Buhari.
Saidu had, in the past, accused ‘enemies of Arewa’, Nigerian journalists and many others of trying to sabotage Mr Buhari’s administration.
His most recent post praising Mr Buhari was on Monday, December 27. He posted a picture of the President and wrote: “I feel happy whenever I see the picture of Baba Buhari smiling.
“Even if insecurity will lead to our death in the north, we’ll never leave Buhari. We’ll continue to follow him and be patient until when God bring and end to the issue. We know that a responsible person like Buhari can never cheat us his kinsmen.”
“In history, I’m the most maligned Buhari’s supporter whose parents are carelessly insulted on social media by Buhari’s critics,” he said in another post, which had 175 comments and was shared four times.
