The Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) has demanded for the resignation of President Muhammadu Buhari following increasing insecurity in the country and his inability to combat it
The NEF made the call yesterday just as the senate rose from a marathon debate on last Saturday’s massacre of over 67 farmers in Zabarmari village, in Jere Local Government area Borno State, Borno State, declaring that the federal government had breached section 14 (1), which makes security and welfare the sole purpose of its existence.
Similarly, the House of Representatives expressed anger at the worsening insecurity and moved a motion summoning the president to appear before it over the Borno bloodbath.
The NEF, in a statement by its director of publicity and advocacy, Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, expressed outrage at the massacre of Borno rice farmers, saying life has no value under the Buhari administration due to the absence of political will to fight the Boko Haram insurgency and other threats including banditry, rustling and kidnapping.
NEF accused the president of ignoring its advice and concerns raised by many other Nigerians.
“Under this administration, life has lost its value and more and more citizens are coming under the influence of criminals. We do not see any evidence of a willingness on the part of President Buhari to honour his oath to provide security over Nigerians.
“These killings and the reality they expose will make relocation of citizens and resumption of economic activities a lot more difficult to achieve even for leadership that attaches priority to them, and this administration does not.
“Elsewhere in many parts of the North, many farming communities have not been allowed by bandits and kidnappers to plant crops.
“In civilised nations, leaders who fail so spectacularly to provide security will do the honourable thing and resign,” the NEF said.
Baba-Ahmed also flayed the response by a presidential spokesman, Mr. Garba Shehu, that the slain farmers did not get security clearance from the military before going to the farm describing it as ‘most insensitive.’
“These particular killings have been greeted by the most insensitive response by spokespersons of the president. The lame excuse that farmers had not sought permission from the military to harvest produce merely exposes the misleading claims that our military had secured vast territories from the insurgency,” Baba-Ahmed said.
At the Senate, lawmakers condemned Buhari for failing to fire the nation’s service chiefs as demanded in the past.
Senators argued that the continued retention of the military chiefs implied the president as the commander-in-chief of the country had failed in his most primary assignment of securing the nation.
They made the declaration while adopting a motion sponsored by a former governor of Borno State, Mr. Kashim Shettima.
Shettima had stated that over 40,000 people had been killed in 10 years by insurgents, adding that over 2.5 million people had been displaced, with thousands of security agents killed.
“Last weekend’s beheading happened about 20 kilometres away from Maiduguri. From the 1st of January to this day, we have had 2,800 attacks in Borno State. Boko Haram is virtually ruling all our rural areas. They kill and abduct people at will. They’re targeting farmers and this will create hunger in the North.
“Government officials keep saying Boko Haram has been technically defeated. This claim is not true. The primary responsibility of government is to protect the lives and property of the people. Any government that has failed in doing this has lost the legitimacy of the people.”
In its resolution, the senate adopted the position that any government that could not discharge the basic obligation of securing citizens was not worthy of legitimacy.
The senate urged the president to probe allegations of corruption and leakages within the security structure and put mechanisms in place to foster transparency and ensure all resources meant and deployed for security were used for the purpose
It also urged Buhari “to take immediate steps to restructure, remodel and revamp the security architecture and provide modern weapons and equipment to combat the insurgents.
The federal government, it stated, should “aggressively explore multilateral and bilateral options of partnership with neighbouring nations of Chad, Niger and Cameroons towards reviving and strengthening the multi-national Joint Task Force and finding a lasting solution to the scourge of insurgency in the Lake Chad region.”
It also asked the federal government to recruit, urgently, no fewer than 10,000 civilian JTF, versatile with the local terrain in the state, to complement the efforts of the Nigerian armed forces.
In the House of Representatives, members expressed anger at the killing while adopting a motion under urgent matters of national importance sponsored by Mr. Satomi Ahmed at the plenary presided by the speaker, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila.
The lawmakers insisted that the president should appear and brief them on national security, though they did not specify when.
Ahmed, who moved the motion on behalf of ten of his colleagues from Borno State, said he was pained that terrorists slit the throats of farmers in a barbaric manner.
The inability of security forces to stop killings by Boko Haram insurgents, bandits, and terrorists in the North East and across the country, according to them, remains a source of concern.
Before the passage of the motion, the lawmakers were, however, divided on the issue of summoning Buhari, which compelled Gbajabiamila to hold an executive session in an apparent bid to douse tension.
Ahmed, according to The Guardian, had incurred the wrath of his colleagues when he deliberately skipped the prayer on the need to summon Buhari by opting to call on the President to, among other things, declare a state of emergency on security matters.
Usman Jaha raised a point of order under matters of privileges, drawing Gbajabiamila’s attention to the omission.
“We, all the members from Borno State sat together and agreed that all the prayers of the motion must remain as they are. We all agreed that Mr. President should be invited to explain the security situation in the country, especially the North East”, the lawmaker insisted.
But Gbajabiamila said the call for a declaration of a state of emergency on security issues as moved by his colleague earlier was sufficient enough to “allow far-reaching measures to be taken”.
“We were discussing a security matter and the channels through which such matters are discussed do not involve inviting the President to come and disclose security strategies. That will be counterproductive,” he added.
Meanwhile, the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, and the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), have backed the moves by the national assembly lawmakers to ensure that the executive takes immediate step to address the rising wave of insecurity in the country.
They supported the House of Representatives’ motion inviting the president to explain what his administration is doing to combat the worsening insecurity in the country.
They also endorsed the call by the senate for the removal of the service chiefs.
Reacting to the positions of the National Assembly, spokesman for the Afenifere, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, described as “heart-warming” the latest step by the federal legislature to combat insecurity.
“It is heartwarming to see both chambers rising up for the country in the midst of the total collapse of security with lamentations being the only thing we hear from the presidency. The country needs a Commander-in-Chief desperately as there is lack of a functional one at the moment,” he said in an interview with ThisDay
Similarly, the executive director of CISLAC, Mr. Auwal Rafsanjani, supported the move by the lawmakers to invite Buhari, saying the president must rise up to take over the communication with Nigerians.
Rafsanjani said if the executive had taken action on the various resolutions by the national assembly, especially demanding the change of the service chiefs, the lawmakers would not have had any reason to summon the president.
“In other countries where democracy works, the president regularly communicates with the citizens but in our own case, some people are making it impossible for the president to be visible and communicate with the citizens.
“So, I am not surprised that the National Assembly wants to invite the president to explain what’s going on within the security challenges that we are facing.
“The northeast and northwest have become a no-go area in terms of insecurity. All that the aides to the president will come and do is to attack the citizens that are victims of insecurity.
That’s why the president must rise up to take over the communication with Nigerians.
“His aides are not communicating very well with citizens rather they are causing more harm. The president should be communicating with Nigerians, not through his aides,” Rafsanjani said.
