Buhari orders Customs Boss Abdullahi Dikko Inde out of his Daura residence * April 2015

PRESIDENT-elect Muhammadu Buhari ordered the comptroller-general of the Nigerian Customs Service Abdullahi Dikko Inde out of his Daura residence.

 It was rumoured that they visited General Buhari to lobby for the retention of their positions once he assumes office on May 29.

According to reports, General Buhari, was livid last week when Alhaji Dikko, who is also from Katsina State visited him and he immediately was advised him to go back to his duty post. Alhaji Dikko, shocked by General Buhari’s response tried unsuccessfully to inform him of the situation at all Nigeria’s borders, seaport and the airports but the president-elect told him that the ideal procedure is to wait until he has been sworn in as president, describing the visit as unhealthy, unethical and disloyalty to a government he is still serving.

He thereafter asked the customs boss to leave his residence, rejecting his gifts and Alhaji Dikko and his team hurriedly left Daura. Mr Abolurin's visit on Sunday was said to be more comical as he arrived in Daura, with top officers of the corps, photographers and some members of the press.

According to a member of the Buhari Campaign from Katsina, the corps officers were left outside in the scorching sun for over an hour, before the commandant and two corps officers were allowed entry into the president-elect’s visitors room. After a while, one of General Buhari's aides said that the retired general wants him out of his residence and will not be seeing him.

However, Mallam Garba Shehu, the director of media and publicity of the APC presidential campaign, dismissed the reports as fictional and uncharitable. He denied that any such incident took place as reported by several online newspapers, as Alhaji Dikko did not even visit Daura at all.

Mallam Shehu said: “It was a false and an inaccurate presentation of facts of what transpired when some government officials visited the president-elect at his Daura country home. It is totally out of General Buhari’s character to ask his visitors out."

According to Mallam Shehu, the alleged visit by Alhaji Dikko, only happened in the imagination of the said publication. He added that when Mr Abolurin, visited, the president-elect was already in another meeting and there was no way the he could receive the new visitors.

“He was merely passing through the town and thought to stop by. As a matter of fact, words were promptly sent to the gentleman and his delegation that General Buhari was unable to meet them owing to the fact of an ongoing meeting that had begun before their arrival.

“The president-elect welcomes positive suggestions from every Nigerian about how to bring progressive change to the country. He will not walk anyone who had come to discuss ways of developing the country as courtesy and civility will not permit that to happen and it is equally not in his character," Mallam Shehu added.

Since being elected, General Buhari has received numerous local and international visitors at his Daura home, which has fast become a Mecca. Former president of Niger Republic, Muhammadou Usman, was among the high profile guests to have visited Daura.