A day after being stopped
by presidential guards from entering the Presidential Villa and meeting with
the President, former Education Minister, Oby Ezekwesili, today wrote Buhari
asking to take urgent steps to end the brutal killing of famers and Christians
across the middle Belt and the northeast.
The former minister, in a
statement made available Vanguard last night, said, “Mr President and Commander
in Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces- President Muhammadu Buhari, having
watched with consternation the criminal massacre of our fellow Nigerians
especially in the first half of this year without any evidence of fierce sense
of urgency on the part of your government to end the abnormality, I have a
simple question for you today.
Are you by any strange possibility in need of
the spilt blood of your citizens? I personally reckon that the answer to this
outlandish question which some of your citizens are now asking in utter
frustration is NO.
“If therefore your own
response is NO as I direly hope it is, I have a few DEMANDS to make on you to
STOP THE KILLINGS NOW!
“I am addressing my message
to you as the President and C-in-C of Nigerian Armed Forces. I am addressing my
DEMANDS to you as that one individual bestowed with the powers of centralized
command and control of our security institutions and personnel to enforce the
provisions of Section 14 subsection 2b of the Nigerian Constitution (As amended)
which states that, “the welfare and security of the citizens shall be the
primary purpose of the government”. Hence;
1.Stop the daily killing of
Nigerians by terrorist-herdsmen now! Nigeria must not be changed into a vast
killing field under your watch, Mr President.
2.Stop normalizing endless
blood flow of even our innocent children in the land now!!! Stop the
bloodletting. It is an aberration.
3.Share the credible
strategy and solutions of your administration to the daily killings of
Nigerians with the people.
4. Reveal the identities of
all the perpetrators of at least all killings that have happened under your
administration in plateau, Benue, Taraba, Kaduna, Zamfara, Adamawa, Nassarawa,
Kogi and other states and the state of judicial proceedings to secure deterrent
sanctions. Reveal the identities, arrest and array all suspected murderers in
court now!!!
5.End the freedom to kill
and maim that the Nigerian has handed to terrorist-herdsmen. Commence effective
investigation, arrest, prosecution and sanction of perpetrators of violent
crimes in all affected states now.
5b. Give justice to the
dead now and secure the living in all affected communities.
6.End the ineffectiveness
of our security establishments, systems and processes now.
7.Stop rewarding the incompetence
and failure of leadership of the security architecture of Nigeria. The cost of
their failure is extremely high in the 1,196 (approx) Nigerians that have died
in only the first five and half months of this year.
8.End your loyalty to your
service chiefs and head of security because of their loyalty to your person. It
is a breach of the oath you swore into office to place nigeria above your
personal interest. It is simply put, an abuse of office.
9.Stop your cold and
visible lack of empathy toward a segment of your citizens who are daily killed
with impunity while you personally make and issue statements that include
endorsing their killers’ scandalous justification of their crime as a mere
retaliatory act for lost cows.
10. Stop the seeming troubling
endorsement by your administration of the repugnant admission by an
organization that it kills human beings who are your citizens for their own
lost cows. Sanction the inspector general of police now if the Nigerian police
fails to arrest those who allegedly made the recent herdsmen association
statement and their members who were assigned to execute the so-called
‘retaliatory attacks’.
11.Mr. President, your bias
in handling the killings and abductions of certain segment of Nigerians is all
too obvious and unbecoming of a leader of a diverse nation like Nigeria. All
Nigerian lives matter!
12. Stop the blame game and
your confusing statements on the killings of your citizens. Today, Maumer
Qaddafi’s Libya destabilization. Tomorrow, your political opponents. Next week,
the affected-communities of state who are already victims of the criminal
negligence and failure to protect by your administration.
13. Commission an urgent
independent research and study into the root causes for evidence based comprehensive
approach to build back the broken down community peace and security in affected
states.
14. Lead a national
discussion to agree a market based policy on cattle ranching and grass/forage
supplies as a fundamental solution to the herdsmen-farmers crisis.
15.Immediately convene a
meeting of all communities affected by terrorist-herdsmen and use your
presidential soft power to mobilize Nigerians for sustainable peace. This would
include discussions on how to govern land, water and pasture in a market-based
manner where no group feels entitled to the others’ assets. Support communities
to institute local conflict resolution systems, mechanisms and platforms.
16. Provide progress report
on national food security council that Mr President inaugurated and chairs to
tackle the herdsmen-farmer crisis: Provide the Nigerian Public with the
progress report of the National Food Security Council which you inaugurated on
Monday, March 26, 2018 under your Chairmanship. At the time of inauguration,
you announced the broad objectives of the Council as being, “to developing
sustainable solutions to the farmers–herdsmen clashes; Climate Change and
Desertification and their impact on farmland; grazing areas and lakes, rivers
and other water bodies; oil spillage and its impact on Niger Delta Fishing
Communities; piracy and banditry; agricultural research institutions and
extension services and the problem of smuggling.”
17.Enough of what could be
interpreted as implicit complicity of your administration in the frequent
killings of your citizens Mr President!!!
18. #NoMoreKillings.
#StopTheKillings. #ActForResultsNOW. #MrPresident
Do as you are told mr president
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