Buhari meets Tunde Thompson: The man he jailed in 1984

The President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, on Tuesday met with Tunde Thompson, one of the journalists jailed for violating Decree 4 in 1984 when he was a military Head of State.

Buhari met with him when he hosted members of his Media Team and Social Media Influencers at the Defence House, Abuja on Tuesday.

The President-elect cracked jokes with Thompson and praised him for rising above his jail experience to forgive and support his presidential bid.

He reminded Thompson, who is a member of his media team, that what happened under his military regime was one of the challenges of that period.

Buhari also applauded his campaign media team led by Mallam Shehu Garba for running “a very decent media campaign” despite the hate campaigns mounted against him by the Peoples Democratic Party.”

He added, “I want to commend you especially for two things. First, is the decent media campaign you conducted despite the PDP’s dirty tactics, you stayed focused on issues and avoided the temptation to sling mud.”

The President-elect particularly commended Garba for providing leadership that led to the success of his team.

He said, “I thank you for your uncommon motivation to do the work. Despite the lean budget on which we ran our campaign, you did not allow the lack of adequate remuneration to stall the work at any point in time. You continued to give your best.”

The President-elect also praised the Independent National Electoral Commission for deploying technology in the conduct of the last election.