Yesterday should have been the first time President Buhari and his ex-buddy and former President Olusegun Obasanjo after their sudden fallout in November.

We had a sense about it and should probably have exercised a little bit of caution as we wrote with certainty that the President “will declare open the South-East Economic and Security Summit (SEESS), a new initiative aimed at maintaining peace and fostering economic growth and development in the South-East and other regions.”

We should have known it sounded to full of promises to be true.

President Obasanjo was there though. Advising South-easterners to shed the culture of individuliasm in the quest for development. Whatever that means.

As you may have figured by now, President Buhari wasn’t and today, as usual, his senior aide on new media matters tried to do some damage control.

Here’s the Presidential explanation:

“The President was presented with a request to attend the Economic and Security Summit by the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu. The President happily accepted. The visit to Enugu was scheduled for Thursday 22nd as can be found on the weekly programme. After this was done, some other stakeholders from the South East came and advised him to not go in view of the closeness of the date to Christmas; that given the sensitivity of the period to the people, a presidential visit may come with overexertion and possibly, be disruptive of Christmas. In view of this, President Buhari requested that the event be pushed forward to January, 2017. Given his nature, he did not insist. He said if the change of date is not possible, then the event can go on without him. That is what the organisers chose to do.”