President Muhammadu Buhari did not refer to all Nigerian youths as lazy in a comment he made in London on Wednesday, the presidency has said.
This comes after many Nigerian youths criticised the country’s number one citizen for saying what they believe to be a blanket statement that Nigerian youths are not willing to work.
The President was reported to have said this during the question and answer section of the Commonwealth Business Forum in London.
But Buhari’s top media aide Femi Adesina said what his boss actually said was “a lot of” Nigerian youths and not all of them.
Adesina made the clarification in a statement made available to newsmen on Thursday.
Read Also:
“Typical of their stock in trade, manipulators and twisters of statements of Mr. President, who lie in wait to make mischief, interpreted the comment to mean that President Buhari had taken all Nigerian youths to the cleaners,” he said.
“But elementary English recognises a wide gulf between ‘a lot of’ and the word ‘all.’ How can ‘a lot of them,’ suddenly transmogrify to mean ‘all of them?’ Mischievous and unconscionable!
“There is no way President Buhari, father of the Nigerian nation in every sense of the word, who equally has biological children of his own in the youths age bracket, pass a vote of no confidence on all youths.
“It can only exist in the imagination of those who play what the President has described as ‘irresponsible politics’ with everything.”
