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- Ending terror, restructuring, state police, return to parliamentary system, regionalism top agenda
By Chukwudi Nweje
Pan Yoruba socio political and cultural organisation, Afenifere has said the major tasks before President Bola Tinubu are to go after the sponsors of terror, restructure the country, expedite the action towards the creation of State police, return the country to parliamentary system of Government, and bring back Regionalism.
The organisation said that looking for solutions to Nigeria’s problems by applying the same methods tried over the years, cannot yield a different result from a certain failure.
It said if the suggested approaches are adopted, “we would watch our countrymen, countrymen and our hopeless children begging to live again in dignity, right before your very eyes.”
The organisation stated this in a statement co-signed by Mogaji Gboyega Adejumo, .Publicity Secretary and Prince Justce Faloye, Deputy National Publicity Secretary.
It said, “Let the people begin to see a change Mr. President — A challenge being tackled over the years with same methods, cannot yield a different result from a certain failure. Change your method, Mr. President. Through your policies, fiscal and monetary, the local currency has suffered the worst trajectory of devaluation of 35 per cent in just your very first 9 months in office, the very first massive devastation in the history of this country. The Nigerian naira plunged to its lowest point on record in official trading as a shortage of US dollars persisted despite promises by the government to boost supply.
“Our people are dying due to hunger. Nigeria has become the hunger capital of the world. How are the people, so impoverished be saddled with paying ransom to kidnappers right in the middle of possibly the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world that even Ukraine a country with Russia lasting two year and still counting, is now the one to be sending humanitarian aid to Nigeria!?”
It also asked Tinubu to decide whether he would rather go the way of his predecessors in office, by looking the other way while innocent blood are spilled due to insecurity, and be disgraced and set for an early exit or if he would find the strength, the will and the courage to face the sponsors of terror, with the resolve to eradicating what it referred to as “this Àbíkú scourge from ever again taking root anywhere in our Land.”
The organisation said Tinubu must make a choice between defeating the financiers and sponsors of terror in Nigeria and letting them disgrace him out of office.
It lamented that since the inception of the current democracy in 1999, there has been a deliberate pattern of creating chaos, distabilising the government, embarrassing the President, and finally, disgracing the President out of office.
The statement further said, “No president since 1999 has escaped this scourge, coming with the political Sharia against Obasanjo, the Niger Delta violent political Agitation of Obasanjo and Yar’Adua and cleverly solved by the duo. The Boko Haram religio-later-turned-political instrument to embarrass a sitting southern Christian president as it was with Jonathan, who was told to convert to Islam, followed by the kidnapping extraordinaire of the Chibok girls type, the final shuck that shocked Jonathan out of office.
“This “Àbíkús”, coming once a regime and for repeated times from as far back as the Zango Kataf crisis, come with land grabbing, human displacement and subjugation of a people over another, often planned, aided, lauded and prompted by those self styled as owners of Nigeria.
“President Buhari openly displayed and practiced the FIVE “P”s: he prevaricated to them; he pampered them; he protected them; he paid them; and he played along with them.
“They were terrorists; Buhari curiously preferred to call them Bandits. Their acts as aggressors, killing farmers, destroying their produce, stealing indigenous peoples’ lands, clearly marked them as Terrorists. Buhari’s Government would rather term these acts as Farmers/Herders clashes. The most disturbing expository, elucidatory, explicative REALITIES about the whole saga is that these terrorists are known to government. Kabiru Sokoto, the Christmas Day bomber in a church in Abuja, in 2012, was found hibernating in the guest house of the then former governor of Borno, now the Vice PRESIDENT of Nigeria. Hermeneutic.
“It is down to you Mr. President if you would rather go the way of your predecessors, by looking the other way and let innocent blood flow, be disgraced and set for an early exit or find the strength, the will and the courage to face the sponsors of Terror, with the resolve to eradicating this Àbíkú scourge from ever again taking root anywhere in our Land.”
Afenifere charged Tinubu to revisit the various reports compiled on terrorism sponsors before he took office with a view of stemming the insecurity.
The statement added, “You were reminded in the Southern Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF) letter to you of all the information available in the public domain — The elaborate discussion that took place on National Television in which Retired Commodore Olawunmi, a former intelligence officer, a product of our intense military training, specifically said that a list of all the perpetrators of Terror in Nigeria, has been submitted to the federal government.
Many in the list he further elucidated, are/were in government high-places. As president, you have access to this list.
“Again, the former Attorney General of the Federation also alluded to the existence of such other lists of painstakingly collected names of known sponsors of terror. On May 7, 2021, the former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, said that ongoing investigations have revealed many highly placed Nigerians and businessmen involved in financing terrorism. He said the ‘strongly’ suspected financiers were already being profiled for prosecution. It is now, March 12, 2024 and not one of them has been brought to court, let alone, justice!
“Interestingly, a foreign Nation, The United Arab Emirate has bought to court and to justice some Nigerian known sponsors of terror, even allegedly, The UAE, has been reported to have diplomatically passed on certain names to the Nigerian government, up till this moment, nothing has been done under your watch. Any wonder then that terror continues to abate, untamed, unshackled?
“Nigerians woke up to yet another slaughter in the hundreds and kidnappings in the two hundreds in yet another school in Kaduna.
“A former Director of the Presidential Campaign Council of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Hajia Naja’atu Mohammed, fired her former party alleging that the then vice presidential candidate, Kashim Shettima, now the vice president, is a sponsor of terrorism. The former APC chieftain said this during a television interview on Arise Television.
“Sheikh Gumi openly goes into the dense forests to meet terrorists in the company of those trained to eradicate Terror, but rather than arrest them, Sheikh openly gives the terrorists money, it never takes long after the monies were openly paid that yet another terror act is carried out. It never ever served as a determent. It was always to the county’s detriment.
“Former Governor Ortom of Benue suffered the most. After hundreds of Benue Indigenes were killed and their ancestral lands taken away from them, the terrorists had the nerve to drop a note, a promissory note that they will yet be back on New year’s day to “finish the job”. The then Governor did what a sensible governor would do, took the letter to Buhari the president and after studying the said letter, told the governor to “go and make peace with his neighbors”, only a complicit does that.
On Christmas Eve in 2023, there was a massacre on the Plateau. Chief Ayo Adebanjo Leader of Afẹ́nifẹ́re, led other leaders that make up the four zones from the South West, South East, South South and the Middle Belt on a condolence visit to the Governor and to the Gwom Gwom Jos and to the entire people on the Plateau. About 300 humans were slaughtered like rams. An open letter written, jointly signed by the Leaders of the SMBLF, {Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum} in which you were tasked, specifically to turn yourself into a Hero and not a Nero, the one who fiddled while Rome burnt.That letter will always be constantly ringing in your ear, never to go away.
“Mr. President, you have to be brutally reminded of these recrudescences in history, a disease constant, an Àbíkú, real, clear and present” Afenifere said
