Aminu Shagari, son of the late President Shehu Shagari, has expressed the hope that incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari, would seek his late father’s forgiveness for the role he (Buhari) played in ousting the Shehu Shagari administration in December 1983 and the rationalizations for the ouster.
The late Alhaji Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari was the first democratically-elected president of Nigeria, who was inaugurated on 1st October 1979. But in 1983, a military coup-de-etat led by then-Major General Muhammadu Buhari ousted the Shagari administration from Office. Buhari was himself kicked out of power in a military palace coup in August 1985, led by then-Major General Ibrahim Babangida. Buhari was later elected Nigeria’s President in March 2015 and assumed Office in May that year.
Speaking in an interview, Aliyu, the son of the late ex-president Shagari, said he expects Buhari to seek his late father’s forgiveness since most of the reasons Buhari gave to justify the coup that ended the Shagari administration in 1983 have been proven false by the passage of time.
The younger Shagari also accused Buhari of failing to honour his late father years after making promises to immortalize the late President.
Shagari’s son, however, apologised to an ex-President, Goodluck Jonathan, President Buhari’s immediate predecessor in office, for campaigning against his administration.
Shagari, a three-term members of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, confessed he “helped to divide the People’s Democratic Party and bring down his (Jonathan’s) government”.
He said, “Let me use this opportunity to tender a public apology to former President Jonathan and seek forgiveness because I helped to divide the Peoples Democratic Party and bring down his government. But, I have found out that what we thought about his stewardship was not entirely true. I expect President Buhari to also ask for forgiveness having found out that most of the things he accused my dad’s and President Jonathan’s administrations of are not true”.
Shehu Shagari, who was Nigeria’s President from October 1, 1979 to December 31st, 1983 died in December 2018, at the National Hospital, Abuja, aged 93.