Special Adviser to President Mohammadu Buhari on Media and publicity, Mr Olufemi Adesina has said his experience in the nation’s seat of power was a good one contrary to what his predecessor, Dr. Reuben Abati claimed he experienced.
Adesina made the claim in his weekly column, From the Inside, in a piece titled, ‘ The good in goodbye.’
He wrote, “My predecessor in office (read, ancestor) Dr. Reuben Abati, had alleged that Aso Villa is haunted, and should be turned to a museum. Abandoned. True? I didn’t see any of his rather wild claims, not in eight years.
“In a piece, he titled The Spiritual Side of Aso Villa, Abati had postulated: “I am ordinarily not a superstitious person, but working in the Villa, I eventually became convinced that there must be something supernatural about power and closeness to it.
“I’ll start with a personal testimony. I was given an apartment to live in inside the Villa. It was furnished and equipped. But when my son, Michael arrived, one of my brothers came with a pastor who was supposed to stay in the apartment.
“But the man refused claiming that the Villa was full of evil spirits and that there would soon be a fire accident in the apartment. He complained about too much human sacrifice around the Villa and advised that my family must never sleep overnight inside the Villa.
“I thought the man was talking nonsense and he wanted the luxury of a hotel accommodation. But he turned out to be right. The day I hosted family friends in that apartment and they slept overnight, there was indeed a fire accident. The guests escaped and they were so thankful.”
Adesina however said he had been in “Aso Rock for eight years. And not even a knockout exploded. Reason to be thankful to God. A good in goodbye.”
He also cited Abati’s claim of incessant deaths in Aso Villa “Hear Abati again: “Around the Villa, while I was there, someone always died or their relations died. I can confirm that every principal officer suffered one tragedy or the other; it was as if you needed to sacrifice something to remain on duty inside that environment.
“Even some of the women became merchants of dildos because they had suffered a special kind of death in their homes (I am sorry to reveal this) and many of the men complained about something that had died below their waists too.
“The ones who did not have such misfortune had one ailment or the other that they had to nurse. From cancer to brain and prostate surgery and whatever, the Villa was a hospital full of agonizing patients.”
But Adesina said he experienced nothing of what Abati claimed happened during his time. “To the glory of God, I never experienced anything like this. Human beings normally face one vicissitude or the other, it is part of life. But God equally spares His own. No ailment to nurse, other than things typical of aspiring senior citizens like me. And nothing died under the waist. Lol”
Still on Abati, Adesina said, “Let’s hear Abati again before we finally weigh anchor: “I really don’t envy the people who work in Aso Villa, the seat of Nigeria’s Presidency. For about six months, I couldn’t even breathe properly. For another two months, I was on crutches. But I considered myself far luckier than the others who were either nursing a terminal disease or who could not get it up.
Read also: My destiny is long hidden in Christ and in God-Femi Adesina: https://churchtimesnigeria.net/femi-adesina-destiny-god/
“When Presidents make mistakes, they are probably victims of a force higher than what we can imagine. Every student of Aso Villa politics would readily admit that when people get in there, they actually become something else. They act like they are under a spell. When you issue a well-crafted statement, the public accepts it wrongly.
“When the President makes a speech and he truly means well, the speech is interpreted wrongly by the public. When a policy is introduced, somehow, something just goes wrong…I am therefore convinced that there is an evil spell enveloping this country. We need to rescue Nigeria from the forces of darkness. Aso Villa should be converted into a museum and abandoned.
“I never slept in the apartment they gave me in that Villa for an hour.”
In his own case, however, Adesina said, “Well, I slept in my house in the Villa for eight years. And I snored, even so loudly to wake myself up. So, it’s really different strokes for different folks. And it really has nothing to do with Aso Villa. Yes, sound sleep is another good in goodbye. The final hurray, the au revoir next week, by the grace of God.”
Earlier in the article Adesina expressed excitement about his impending exit from Aso Rock saying, “My job is done, my bags are packed, and I’m ready to go. When I step out of the Presidential Villa on Friday, May 26, 2023, it would be the last as an insider. If I ever return, it would be as a visitor.
“My name would have to be first sent to the lobby station, I would go through security screening, before being granted access. And that is a place I’d driven in and out from freely in the past eight years. Yes, the only thing constant in life in change. I leave happily, fulfilled, and I say there’s a lot of good in goodbye.”
