Presidency concedes that recent award given to Buhari was not from Martin Luther King Centre

LATE Dr Martin Luther King's family have denied being the ones behind the recent award given to President Muhammadu Buhari in the name of the civil rights leader's foundation pointing out that the honour did not come from them.

Earlier this week, President Buhari was presented with a Black History Award at the presidential villa in Abuja for Exceptional Leadership in Africa. It has since attracted the chagrin and ire of civil rights groups across the country who say it is inappropriate given the amount of insecurity and divisiveness across the country, which can be attributed to the Buhari administration.

Under pressure from critics, the King Center, the foundation run by Dr King's children, has come out to deny that it was behind the award.  Although the representatives who gave the award are related, they appear not to be direct descendants of the late Dr King, with one of the guests said to be the late civil rights leaders' brother’s wife and another a nephew.

In a tweet, the official Twitter handle of The King Center said: “The award given to President Buhari of Nigeria was not given by The King Center, at the request of The King Center or by the children of Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King."

Conceding that this was indeed the case, Hon Abike Dabiri-Erewa, President Buhari's senior special assistant on diaspora and foreign affairs, said the federal government did not state that the honour was bestowed by the King Centre,  accusing anti-Buhari elements of propagating fake news. She said President Buhari received a commemorative plaque for his fight against corruption by a member of Martin Luther King's family not by the centre.

Hon Dabiri-Erewa added: “Our attention has been drawn to obviously fake online news reports on the visit of some members of the Martin Luther King (MLK) family to Nigeria. The members, led by the matriarch of MLK, Naomi Barbara King, were in Nigeria as part of the activities initiated to celebrate a low- key black history month in Nigeria as part of deepening partnership between Africa and its diaspora.

“As part of the activities, they visited President Muhammadu Buhari and gave him a commemorative plaque for his fight against corruption and what they termed from the Africania Diaspora, a term for Africans in diaspora for which the oldest of them all Naomi Barbara King was selected to present on behalf of the family, as a sign of appreciation to the Nigerian President. It must be categorically stated here that the trip was totally privately funded and not one kobo was spent by the Nigerian government as it was all a private initiative.

“However, after two days in Nigeria, one of the members apparently granted an interview which was seen as being political, asking Nigerians to give President Muhammadu Buhari a chance to continue his good works especially of fighting corruption in Nigeria. As a non political group , he was asked to refute the statement , which he refused to , insisting that was how he felt  and it was his personal opinion, not that of the family nor the centre, of which he is a board member and was the chief operating officer for over five years.

She added that the visit to Nigeria was successful and the visitors extended their stay for two days. Hon Dabiri-Erewa urged members of the public to discountenance any fake news about the visit and avoid the temptation of destroying all the good things for the sake of politics as the administration marches on in the fight against corruption.