By Gbade Ogunwale, Tony Akowe, Abuja and Adekunle Jimoh, Ilorin
Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal yesterday blamed Nigeria’s myriad of problems, including insecurity, on President Muhammadu Buhari’s wrong approach to governance.
Tambuwal said the security challenges in the country under Buhari’s leadership had reached a point that residents of some communities in Sokoto State move into Niger Republic in the evenings to sleep , “with eyes closed” and return to their homes in the mornings.
But Cross River State Governor Ben Ayade said insecurity in the country would have been worse but for Buhari’s interventions. The two governors visited Buhari on Tuesday in Abuja.
The Sokoto State governor, who served as Speaker of the House of Representatives during the Goodluck Jonathan administration, spoke in Abuja on Wednesday night while Ayade spoke on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, yesterday morning.
Earlier yesterday, Speaker of the House of Representatives Femi Gbajabiamila described the current security challenges as a serious threat to the foundation of the country.
Tambuwal, who addressed notable Nigerians who served as ministers between 1999 and 2015, explained that he had no personal grievances with the President but his policies.
He accused Buhari of nepotism, saying Nigeria was in a quandary because he (President) does not understand Nigeria, just as Nigeria does not understand” him.
Listing the economy and anti-corruption as other areas hard hit by Buhari’s wrong approach to governance, the governor said he was in good stead to fix the problems facing the country.
His words: “Buhari does not understand Nigeria, just as Nigeria does not understand Buhari. We have never been this divided. The fault lines have been overstretched and Nigerians are wondering what they are doing in this country.
“That is a general concern, virtually in every nook and cranny of this country.
“Where I am presiding as governor (Sokoto State), we have communities that are not more than 10 kilometres to each other in Nigeria and the Niger Republic.
“As I speak to you, some of those communities, once it is evening, move into the Niger Republic, where they can sleep with their two eyes closed and in the morning, they come back to Nigeria.
“I quite understand how precarious our situation is in terms of insecurity and displacement of people of this country. The ship of state is rudderless. We are in a ship without a captain, we are in a ship that is clearly sinking.
“President Buhari is the president of Nigeria today. But it’s like a forced marriage between him and Nigeria. He does not understand Nigerians and Nigerians, probably up to now, do not understand President Buhari”.
Deploring the exclusion of the Southeast from the scheme of things, Tambuwal wondered how Buhari expected the people of the zone to be happy with his administration.
“How can, in a government of the Republic of Nigeria, we can have from number one to almost number nine without a representation from a whole geopolitical zone; from the President, Vice President to the Senate President, Speaker, Deputy Senate President, Deputy Speaker, SGF and Chief of Staff, and then the National chairman of their party(All Progressives Congress)..
“None is from the Southeast and you expect people to be happy with you and be clapping for you; where there is a clear case of exclusion which is a very important component of any democratic governance. “We have never had it so bad and the general economic situation of the country is also very bad.”
The Peoples Democratic Party presidential aspirant urged the former ministers who are delegates to the May 28-29 presidential primary of the party, to vote for him to enable him to fix the damages.
“It behoves all of us, irrespective of whatever our leanings are, irrespective of where we are coming from, to rally round to rescue our country,” he said.
Urging the delegates not to place much emphasis on the origin of contenders for the PDP ticket, the governor said Katsina State where Buhari comes from, is far worse today in terms of security than it was in 2015.
“If you talk about ethnicity, if you talk about religion, myself and President Buhari are from the same ethnic background. But I disagree with the way he was and still running our country.
“Katsina was better than what it is today yet Buhari is the President of Nigeria. Katsina is even worse for it because Mr President has not been able to secure the lives and property of the people of Katsina State.
“So, it is not about where you are coming from. What should be important to us is that candidate that can win the election for us, that candidate that understands the country, that has the capacity, experience and understanding of the dynamics of the country of today.
“Sentiment is what so many used to vote for Buhari, has it paid off? No. So it is not about where the President comes from”.
But Governor Ayade told Channels Sunrise yesterday that insecurity could have been worse if not for the intervention of Buhari.
Ayade, who visited the President on Tuesday.in Abuja to notify him of his presidential ambition, said Buhari had done a lot to mitigate insecurity in the country.
He said: “Security has a very unique international dimension. Nigeria has so many essential elements.”
“International community, locally and across the whole globe has an eye on us. Most of the time in Africa if you have such solid minerals it’s just an invitation for a crisis because they will keep you unsettled so that they can do the exploitation.
“If Buhari wasn’t president, the security condition of this country could have been worse but because you don’t trace the historical background of where we are, you won’t see what he has done.
“The security issue we have is a global issue that is focused on keeping Nigeria unstable. It is far beyond the capacity of Nigeria’s President. It is something the nation must cry to the international community and seek sophisticated digital, no contact warfare to be able to address it.
“There is an international conspiracy against this nation. Nigeria is extremely lucky by the capacity of the sitting president..”
Insecurity undermining Nigeria’s nationhood, says Gbajabiamila
Earlier yesterday, Speaker Gbajabiamila had said that the current security challenges were hampering the roles of Nigeria in Africa.
He stated this while delivering a paper on ‘Democracy in Challenging Times: The Role of African Parliaments in Safeguarding and Delivering on the Dividends of Democracy” at the School of Oriental Studies, London.
The Speaker, however, said the Federal Government has responded to the challenges by taking certain measures such as increasing funding for the police and the military; recruiting personnel for security agencies, among others.
Gbajabiamila said: “The most pressing of these challenges today is the national security crisis that threatens the foundations of our nationhood and portends great danger for Africa and the world if it persists.
“First, to address present challenges and then to build resilient institutions that can withstand uncertainty in troubled times, more than anything else, our focus must remain on the young and vibrant youth of Nigeria and Africa who have so much to offer the world and who have proven that they can thrive under challenging circumstances given half a chance.
“However we cannot do this for as long as our present national security challenges persist.
“The government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has responded to the reality of our present challenges by increasing funding provisions for the police and armed forces, accelerating recruitment and training to put more boots on the ground and also acquiring weapons systems designed to give the security agencies an advantage.”