Former Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has disclosed that his wife cautioned him not to abuse the late ex-President Muhammadu Buhari when he passed on early in July.

“The people in Nigeria only praise the dead,” he said on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Friday. “When President Buhari died, I wanted to come out and abuse him (but) my wife called me not to say so.”

Fayose, a longtime critic of the Buhari government, argued that the late former president did not perform up to acceptable standards during his eight-year tenure.

“Would you say Buhari performed? I’m not among those praising the dead. Don’t honour me when I die. When I die, I’m gone.

“When President Buhari was in government, we all know what this country was. So, nobody should come and tell me that (President Bola) Tinubu is not doing well.”

The former Ekiti governor said unlike Buhari, Tinubu is accessible.

“He (Tinubu) is accessible. Was the former president accessible?

“A lot of things are happening in those days but do you still find them in the system? He is not a perfect man but we are not where we were.”

In defence of Tinubu, Fayose said, “Nigeria is a sick country; it will take heaven to pull it out at once.

“What miracle can anybody do in two years? The situation is critical, wide and deep. Tinubu inherited a very bad economy.”

Born on December 17, 1942, Buhari served as the country’s military head of state between January 1984 and August 1985. He later returned as Nigeria’s democratically elected president in May 2015, a position he held for eight unbroken years until May 2023, when he handed over to his party’s candidate, Tinubu. (Channels TV, but headline rejigged)