Two Middle Belt groups have kicked against President Muhammadu Buhari’s alleged plans to contest the 2019 presidential election.
The President, Middle Belt Youth Council, Comrade Emma Zopmal told newsmen last Saturday that, there was nothing Buhari could offer.
Zopmal said “We all know the gross violations of extant laws that have made our legal system to suffer under President Buhari. His ambition to seek re-election will tamper with a lot of things in this country. He should just play the gentleman and go home”.
Similarly, the President of the National Council of Tiv Youth (NCTY), Dr John Akperashi said that those calling on Buhari to run in 2019 are doing so for their selfish interests.
Akperashi stated this in an interview with our correspondent while commenting on a statement by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. Boss Mustapha, that the President would contest the 2019 presidential election.
The group said, “If you look at the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, of course, you would not expect him to say anything otherwise just as if you were equally in his position.”
According to him, for any person to clamour for Buhari’s return in 2019, such a person must basically first and foremost evaluate his performance and delivery capacity based on his 2015 campaign promises.
“Buhari’s administration is one that has failed woefully in the areas of security, protection of lives and property, and governance.
“For instance, in all the communities, rural areas and states that the Fulani herdsmen have left their horror, the ugly memories still linger.
“The general phenomenon and accusations by the rural dwellers, whether you like it or not, is that because Buhari is a Fulani, his kinsmen are emboldened to unleash horror, invade ancestral homes and occupy same unchallenged,” he lamented.
Meanwhile, former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu has lambasted President Muhammadu Buhari over incessant killings across the country by herdsmen.
He condemned the narrow-minded and sectional handling of the murders and warned him to stop behaving like President of the Fulani.
Odinkalu, who was a guest on Gatefield TV programme, #ConversationsWithAbangMercy, berated Buhari for not sending a representative to Benue State immediately after the mass killings of at least 73 persons by Fulani herdsmen.
He decried the sectional argument by some people that the Fulanis were also killed in Numan, Adamawa State as inhuman and baseless.
The former human rights chief warned that the president’s authority was being destroyed by the perception of his ethnic proclivity and stressed that Buhari has failed to protect the lives of Nigerians.
“Every Nigerian is President Buhari’s person. Once a president gets involved or gets caught in the perception of being involved in that kind of mindset, his authority is destroyed.
“He cannot afford to be put in the position of being portrayed as your people, my people. Every Nigerian whether you are 97 per cent or 5 per cent to use his words, you are President Buhari’s person.
“So what happens to you should bother him and according to our Constitution, the protection of the people is the responsbility of the President and as far as I am concerned, the President has failed in that primary responsibility.”
Odinkalu further criticised the Federal Government’s treatment of El-Zakzaky and the Shiites in Nigeria and accused them of siding with the Saudi Arabian Wahabbi Sunni government.
“In 2015 December, six trucks collected the bodies of 347 dead Nigerians and in an operation that included over 47 soldiers they took over 6 hrs to bury these Nigerians in mass graves.
“The only reason this happened to Shiites is because they are Shiites. There is a lot of Saudi money flowing into all manner of places promoting their version of Islam,” Odinkalu said.
He also raised an alarm over the various arrests of persons including bloggers for exercising their freedom of speech.
Also, a foremost Ijaw leader and the convener of the Pan-Niger Delta Forum(PANDEF), Chief Edwin Clark has carpeted President Muhammadu Buhari on his refusal to visit Benue State following series of killings by Fulani herdsmen that have left hundreds dead in the state, and also urged him to see those asking him to seek re-election as his real enemies.
Clark also said the coalition formed by former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, ahead of the 2019 election will fail.
The Ijaw leader said although Obasanjo’s statement on Buhari’s administration was coming at the right time, the former President was not the right person to pass such message for various substantiated reasons.
He told newsmen at the weekend, “As far as I am concerned, majority of the issues raised in Obasanjo’s statement are things that Nigerians are worrying about, but the messenger is not the right person who should deliver the message because he (Obasanjo) has no moral justification to deliver it.
“In the first instance, he introduced corruption to the National Assembly. He not only initiated corruption among the lawmakers, he legalised it.”
Speaking on the coalition, he asked, “What are they trying to achieve? These are disgruntled elements from the PDP. Their (coalition) group is dead on arrival. It will fail.”
Clarke, while listing reasons Buhari should go home and rest, noted that the President has not been able to visit Benue and other states where there have crisis because of health and age.
According to him, “I was shocked when I heard that some people are asking (Buhari) him to contest again. This is somebody who left Nigeria for many months to receive treatment in Britain. I was shocked that the man had barely arrived in Nigeria when those promoting him decided to launch his second –term campaign.
“Nigerians don’t even know if Buhari is completely healthy for the great task of governance yet. We don’t even know his ailment. I think that it is too early in the day for anybody to think of President Buhari being returned for a second term.
“I think he (Buhari) has to take care of his health first. Nigerians are also talking about his age whether 74 or 75. If he is 75, it means that by 2019, he would be 76 or 77. The man at the moment does not look healthy.
“He’s a fine man but I do not think that at the age of 80 or 77 he is still strong enough to become the President of Nigeria. Those of them who are saying they want Buhari are not sincere with him. We are not talking of being competent or not.
“I have always supported his anti-corruption crusade, his sincerity and honesty of propose. But these are not enough to rule a big country like Nigeria. Nigeria requires a mobile president – a president who can be moving from place to place.
“For the period he (Buhari) was away, Niger Delta was boiling, but the then Acting President Yemi Osinbajo was able to go to the area to meet with the people of the region including the various leaderships and youths.
“If President Buhari were a younger person or somebody who is very healthy, he would have visited Benue State over the killings by herdsmen to have an on–the–spot assessment. In this case, you can’t blame or fault him because you don’t know the state of his health.
“There are a lot of things that Obasanjo mentioned in his special statement. I will advise that President Buhari should not listen to those people clamouring for a second term for him. He should examine his state of health and his ability to do the work.
“These are things he has to consider: Nigeria first, before him. I know he has the interest of Nigeria at heart but he must be capable of doing it physically and psychologically and mentally,” the Ijaw leader said.