Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, on Friday said that Nigeria was on the brink before the emergence of his principal in 2015.

According to Adesina, Buhari “stabilised the land, crushed vermin, and is cleaning the polity”.

The presidential aide was reacting to a Christmas message by Catholic cleric Matthew Kukah, who said Buhari is leaving Nigerians “far more vulnerable” than when he came.

Writing in his weekly column, Adesina said “insurgents running riot across the length and breadth of the country” until Buhari became president.

“Where was the Bishop in 2015, when the polity had been completely shot to ribbons, and you couldn’t exactly say this was where Nigeria stood? Was there even a Nigeria, with insurgents running riot across the length and breadth of the country, bombing the land to kingdom come? The Bishop forgets, or is too filled with amnesia to remember.

“If Nigeria was vulnerable to death, destruction, destabilization, it was the situation before Buhari came, more than now. To a great deal, he has stabilized the land, crushed vermin, and is cleaning the polity.

“The job is not fully done, but is being done. Daily.

“Bishop Kukah has been accused many times of being a political priest, with propensity for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and great antipathy for the APC. That was possibly the prism from which he saw things, and, therefore, his erroneous conclusion of “more vulnerable,” Adesina wrote.