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T0P ST0RY: Adesina Reveals Why Northern Elders Are Calling On Buhari To Resign | DETAILS

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T0P ST0RY: Adesina Reveals Why Northern Elders Are Calling On Buhari To Resign | DETAILS

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, have responded to calls from Northern Elders Forum (NEF) on Muhammadu Buhari to resign as the President of Nigeria.

The NEF in a statement released on April 12 and signed by its Director, Publicity and Advocacy, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, restated its stand that president Buhari should resign owing to unabated insecurity in the country.

“The administration of President Buhari does not appear to have answers to the challenges of security to which we are exposed. We cannot continue to live and die under the dictates of killers, kidnappers, rapists and sundry criminal groups that have deprived us of our rights to live in peace and security.

“Our Constitution has provisions for leaders to voluntarily step down if they are challenged by personal reasons or they prove incapable of leading.

“It is now time for President Buhari to seriously consider that option, since his leadership has proved spectacularly incapable of providing security for Nigerians. Our Forum is aware of the weight of this advice, and it is also aware that we cannot continue to live under these conditions until 2023 when President Buhari’s term ends,” the Northern Forum said.

Responding to the calls on Thursday, Adesina in an article he titled; “Hiding Under The Umbrella Of Insecurity” described the NEF as Generals without troops, filled with bitter and self seeking individuals.

According to Adesina, the NEF members are bitter because they failed in their plans to be part of the key personalities in the administration of Buhari when he emerged president in 2015.

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Adesina affirmed that there is severe insecurity in the country, however President Buhari’s administration is fighting it.

The article read in part;

Security is everything, nobody can dispute that. You have to be alive to enjoy every other thing government is providing; roads, rail, bridges, airports, food security, in fact, everything.

That is why whenever you hear President Muhammadu Buhari talk of the priorities of his administration for the country, he starts with security, stressing that before you can efficiently manage an organization, town, city, or country, you first have to secure it. He then proceeds to talk about reviving the economy, and fighting corruption. But security is always number one.

Does Nigeria have security challenges? Severe ones. I’ve always said it, while adding that the government was taking up the gauntlet.

The point of interest today is the hackneyed calls on President Buhari to resign over the country’s security challenges, the latest coming from a so-called Northern Elders Forum (NEF), a group I’d once described as “Generals without troops.”

The Forum is largely made of angry, bitter, self-seeking individuals, who had thought they would be leading President Buhari by the nose when he emerged in 2015. In fact, key personalities in the group made strenuous efforts to be part of the administration. When they didn’t succeed, they became adversaries.

It is on record that NEF had always opposed the Buhari administration since its gambit failed, and before the 2019 presidential election, it openly endorsed Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as next President. And that completely vitiates whatever position the Forum adopts today. It is partisan, bilious, by no means neutral. It is from a self-serving standpoint.

Between 2009 and 2022, there were at least 271 mass shootings in United States of America, resulting in 1,518 people killed, and 980 wounded. Just this week, there has been the Brooklyn Subway Shooting, in which at least 23 people were critically injured. In all these, did you hear calls for the resignation of any American President? It is on record that last year was the deadliest in a decade, in terms of mass shootings. Have you heard of calls for the resignation of President Joe Biden by a caterwauling band? No.

Every life is important. No single life should be taken wantonly. Not in America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and definitely not in Nigeria. And when challenges occur, as we currently have, it should not be turned to a leaky political umbrella, from under which you hide to express hatred and malice. That is what is happening in Nigeria today. Individuals, groups, organizations, political parties, who had been against President Muhammadu Buhari, and who had been given bloody noses at the polls, are now using the smokescreen of insecurity to vent their spleen. We failed to oust him through the ballot box, let’s run him out of town by another means. Let’s instigate the country against him. But majority of Nigerians know better.

Do we have security problems? We do, just as many other countries of the world. How then do we solve the problems? That is what we expect to hear, and not playing of petty politics under the umbrella of insecurity.

Some of the issues are historical, transcending almost every administration we have had. They are almost as old as the country. Some others are relatively new; insurgency, banditry, kidnappings for ransom, and have the imprint of foreign backing, particularly in some parts of the North. What is the way out?

For the internecine ones, it is crystal clear that no government can legislate peace. The people themselves must resolve to live together, and accommodate one another. No group can wish the other away under indigene versus settler sentiments. We must resolve for peace. They must not only seek peace, but also pursue it.

As for insurgency, banditry and kidnappings, government is rising to the challenges. Yes, there are successes and reversals at times, but there’s no doubt that the necessary efforts are being made. It is, therefore, unconscionable to make it appear as if nothing is being done. It is a power struggle. A class struggle. An economic struggle. But at last, Nigeria shall win.

It is the sacred duty of government to provide security of lives and property. Our Constitution says it in black and white. No leader will be happy to see his citizens killed. That is why more than any government before it, the Buhari administration has funded our security agencies, trained, equipped and motivated them. They are out there, fighting to keep us safe. The least we can do is pray for them, encourage them, not engaging in petty power play, which amounts to dancing on the graves of the dead.

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