Call for Buhari’s resignation: ACF, Ohanaeze, Afenifere differ

• It’s uncharitable, says ACF
• Ohanaeze, Afenifere want service chiefs sacked
• Yakassai: Resignation’ll not solve problem of insecurity

Mixed reactions, yesterday, trailed Wednesday’s call by the Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, for President Muhammadu Buhari to resign over growing insecurity in the country.

While apex Northern body, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), described the call as not only unkind but uncharitable, apex Igbo body and pan Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, asked the President to sack his security chiefs.

ACF said that in spite of the prevailing security situation, President Buhari has made some progress in securing the country, adding that “if there have been some progress in addressing the issues, let us be fair and give credit to whom it is due and condemn only for purpose of inspiring improvement.”

ACF Secretary General, Anthony Sani, who stated the position of the group, further said: “As soon as the government was inaugurated for a second term, there was upsurge of insecurity posed by kidnapping, armed robbery, banditry, cattle rustling, clashes between herders and farmers, cultism and ritual killings. And instead of coming together to unleash their synergistic potential against the collective challenges, some elbow-grievance groups clamouring for government preferment gave the challenges ethnic and religious profiling, thereby unwittingly providing the criminal elements platforms to shield themselves and perpetrate more crimes, knowing it is not possible to prosecute ethnicity and religion.

“Somehow, the government was able to subdue the attacks and relative peace returned until very recently when the attacks resurfaced. It was against this backdrop that President Buhari expressed surprises at the resurgence of the attacks, when a delegation from Niger State paid him a courtesy call few days ago.

“It is therefore baffling and bewildering that the honest expression of surprise would earn the President a call by a senator for his resignation. This is most unkind and uncharitable in the sense that there has been substantial reduction of killings since the emergence of the current regime under the watch of President Buhari, however slow.

“What the government and the armed forces need is not lowering of morale, but inspiration by our leaders, especially when regard is paid to paucity of funds needed for capacity building by way of enough trained and well equipped security personnel amid competing demands for socio-economic development. It is only in Nigeria that some people are happy when soldiers are killed by the insurgents and post the video anyhow on social media.

“I read the other day that it is only in Nigeria that killers are left to walk free on the street as if the attacks and killings are in conventional warfare as against the prevailing guerrilla type of attacks. I believe that despite some observed shortcomings of the current regime in the management of the nation, there have been some substantial progress which do not deserve call for the resignation of the helmsman of the government.

“It is very true that Buhari promised Nigerians that if voted into power, he would tame insecurity posed by not only insurgent sects but also those posed by other criminal elements of the society. The All Progressives Congress (APC) also campaigned that it would tame unbridled corruption as bane of socio-economic development, as well as saying the government would diversify the economy away from over dependence on oil wealth that is never result of hard work.

“Nigerians voted the APC and Buhari into government with the hope that the promises would find expression. Because of frustrations with the immediate past regime, most Nigerians did not consider the reality that in politics, there are some promises that are too good to be true because either the predisposing factors were not considered in depth or the promises were truly unrealistic and gave no rooms for freak.

“Since coming to government, President Buhari told the nation that what he saw was over and above his estimates. The President was honest enough to admit he considered the possibility of abdication, but for instinct of patriotic courage. But the government has confronted the challenges and there have been appreciable progress.”

Ohanaeze Ndigbo, which said Buhari would have resigned if it were to be in other climes given the prevalent situation in the country, however, stated that its position is that the President should rejig the security architecture of the country, starting with the sack of the security chiefs.

Reacting to the development through Chief Emeka Attamah, the

Special Adviser on Media to the President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief John Nnia Nwodo, Chief Emeka Attamah, who spoke on behalf of the group, also said that the body agrees with the National Assembly that the security system in the country has completely broken down.

The group stated that the formation of regional and sectional security outfits like Amotekun and the ones being proposed by the South East and North Central zones among others is evidence of the failure of the federal security apparatus.

“We are not really saying that the President should resign. You know that for the president to resign, it is a herculean task, but in other climes, the prevalent situation is enough for a president to resign. But in Nigeria, the situation is such that we cannot advocate for that because of obvious political implications.

“So, we can only say that he should change the heads of the security agencies, the service chiefs, which we have been telling him for a long time. Keeping people who are supposed to have resigned a long time ago in service, denies others who are supposed to rise through the ranks to assume the positions they are occupying and it engenders serious disaffection and resentment because people are not happy within the forces. The people they are commanding cannot give their best as their followers and that has broken down the whole security apparatus of this country.

“It is crystal clear to everybody in this country that we are reaching a situation of falling over a precipice. It’s crystal clear that Nigeria is heading towards a precipice and any moment citizens and sections of the country begin to form security apparatus of their own, it presupposes that the federal security system has flailed and it is evident that the security system in Nigeria has actually failed.

“There have been calls for a long time for the President to rejig the security apparatus in this country, change the heads of security organisations, but he said no for primitive, nepotistic and personal reasons instead of the welfare of the whole country he is governing. And the security situation has deteriorated to a level where everybody is now ‘to your tent oh Israel.’

“The Senate President is of the APC and the Speaker of the House of Representatives is also of the APC. If APC is now saying that the security system has collapsed, then this is the first time Nigerians are coming out with the truth. It’s no longer drawn along political line because the first thing in the life is self-preservation. You have to be alive for you to enjoy the dividends of democracy.”

Afenifere, which spoke through one its leaders, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, also backed the call for sack of service chiefs.

His words: “It is only in this country that Buhari will last so long. He shouldn’t have spent more than two years in his first term before people send him away. But because people are so fanatical about what is wrong, people refused to listen. Didn’t I warn people in 2015 not to vote for Buhari. What did I say then that is not true now? Despite that they reelected him and people are getting the result and now shouting ‘Buhari must go.’

“How can security be so bad and the man is still there. The service chiefs are still saying that they are doing their best; people should have been fired by now. The President has shown a lot of incompetence, so what people are saying is not new, but it is better late than never.

“We are talking about his resignation, he will not go. The constitution does not allow it, but it is right to say so to know the feelings of the people. If we want to let him go, we must change the constitution. The constitution is making him autocratic and so complacent. He has control over everything. So, if we are serious that he should go, this constitution must go for us to return to true federalism. The moment we do that, we can send him away. Until you do that, you are in slavery.”

Elder statesman, Alhaji Tanko Yakassai, who also threw his weight behind sack of the service chief, however faulted calls for Buhari’s resignation, saying it might not really change the security situation in the country.

He told New Telegraph that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo will take over if the President resigns, but wondered what difference he will make since they were elected on the same platform and had been sharing ideas on how to govern the country.

According to him, the problem of insecurity in the country is very disturbing, but advised Nigerians to begin to elect leaders with capacity to tackle the challenges instead of voting for people based on sentiments.

His words: “The problem of insecurity in the country is very disturbing and what I can agree with is that the President needs to change his strategy. He also needs to replace his security chiefs because his personal strategy has failed and the strategies of his security chiefs have also failed. So, it is better to reconsider the problem to see how he can come up with a new solution.

“The present solution is not working, however the problem with his resignation is that this is a presidential system of government and the president is elected and if he resigns his deputy takes over, I did not see to what extent there would be any change if the President goes and his deputy takes over.

“I think that rather than risking the future, I would say the security chiefs should be replaced. Maybe, the new ones will come with a new idea and that will help the country better.”