Former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, has reacted to President Donald Trump’s description of President Muhammadu Buhari as “lifeless”.
Trump reportedly made the statement shortly after a meeting between the two leaders on April 30.
Buhari, the first sub-Saharan Africa president to meet Trump since he was sworn in as the 45th American president, was in the US for bilateral talks.
After the meeting, Trump, according to the Financial Times, told his aides that he never wanted to meet someone as “lifeless” as Buhari again.
Reacting, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain said Buhari’s actions had caused him ridicule.
The former minister also condemned Buhari’s statement at the opening ceremony of the Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) on Monday.
The President, in his speech, urged lawyers to put national security over and above the rule of law.
On Tuesday, Fani-Kayode said: “The greatest threat to national security and the national interest is a President that cannot appreciate the sanctity of the rule of law and the sacrosanct nature of the constitution.
“If this rhetoric of national interest and national security being more important than the rule of law continues it will have grave, disastrous and cataclysmic consequences for our country.
“It will lead to strong resistance, subversion of the state, conflict, war and the disintegration of Nigeria.
“This is because we are not prepared to live in or accept the imposition of a totalitarian police state where dissent, opposition, free speech, human rights and civil liberties have no place.”
