…As House of Reps Summons the President to Explain Menace

Popular Human Rights Lawyer, Mr Femi Falana, wants President Muhammadu Buhari and other public officials barred from foreign trips until the insecurity in the country is resolved, just as the leading opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) says the President should return home to tackle the rising menace.

President Muhammadu Buhari is currently on a 10-day private visit to the UK.

While presenting a paper on Press Freedom in Nigeria and the Rule of Law, Falana, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, said the President and all governors should not leave the shores of the country until there is a solution to insecurity.

While attributing the root cause of insecurity to poverty, he said that the menace cannot be curbed outside Nigeria.

“It is high time President Buhari and all state governors who are abroad returned to the country to attend to the urgent crisis of insecurity,” he said.

“With the virtual take-over of the country by armed bandits, terrorists and kidnappers, the President and all top public officers should be barred by Nigerians from embarking on foreign private or official visits to other countries until further notice.

“It is common knowledge that the security challenges facing the nation include terrorism, kidnapping, armed robbery, human trafficking and extra-judicial killings. As the root cause of such violent crimes is traceable to the excruciating poverty in the land, a critical examination of the security challenges cannot be undertaken outside the nation’s neo-colonial capitalist political economy.”

Commenting on the role of the media, Falana said the constitution has charged members of the fourth estate of the realm to hold public officers accountable.

He advised the press to shun putting light on the certificate controversy of politicians but urge them to provide solutions to underlying issues of poverty and underdevelopment.

“In Nigeria, no attempt has been made to repeal any of the repressive media laws while the National Assembly has been trying frantically to censor the media and use the pending press council to gag the media,” Falana said.

“All elected public officers should be made to proffer solutions to the crisis of underdevelopment and stop the irrelevant debate on the educational qualification of any candidate.”

“Since the 2019 elections have been concluded, the duty imposed on the media is to ensure that political parties and elected officials are held accountable.”

“To that extent, the media should ensure that the political parties are made to explain to the Nigerian people how they plan to address the crisis of underdevelopment that has reduced a richly endowed nation to a beggar taking questionable loans to pay salaries of public officers and service unproductive bureaucracy.”

He also called for a review of the concept and understanding of the rule of law among politicians.

“While senior public officers continue to give the impression that the country is operated under the rule of law, their actions and utterances suggest otherwise. In the process, the country is reduced to a banana republic where the rule of law is substituted for the rule of the rulers,” he said.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday also urged President Buhari to end his private visit to the United Kingdom and immediately return to Nigeria and address what it described as “the deteriorating security challenges in the country.”

The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement also said it was completely unacceptable for Buhari to “abandon his responsibilities as the Commander-In-Chief,” to pursue “unexplained private matters abroad,” while bandits, marauders and insurgents seize, maim, kidnap and kill in Nigeria.

He said, “President Buhari’s inattention has emboldened insurgents and bandits to continue to over-run communities, unleash mayhem and bloodletting on citizens in Borno, Zamfara, Yobe, Adamawa, Gombe, Taraba, Kaduna, Benue, Kogi and other states of the federation, including Buhari’s home state, Katsina.

“Bandits are having a field day, pillaging communities in Katsina State; killing several persons and abducting the District Head of his hometown, Daura, Musa Umar; the father in-law of Mr. President’s security aide.”

He added, “Within this period, marauders invaded communities in Adamawa and killed no fewer than 26 innocent Nigerians; many more have been killed in Borno, Taraba, Benue and Zamfara states, where bandits also reportedly attacked Government Girls Secondary School, Moriki, and kidnapped some school girls.

“While the Buhari administration remains virtually nonchalant, kidnappers have taken over many of our major highways, with hundreds of compatriots held in captivity in forests along Kaduna-Abuja, Taraba-Katsina-Ala and other highways in the country.”

Ologbondiyan noted the allegations that some of the bandits arrested in states such as Katsina, are not Nigerians but aliens. He urged the police to investigate the matter.

The House of Representatives on Thursday also re-invited President Buhari to address the chamber on what his administration is doing about the high spate of insecurity across Nigeria.

It was the second invitation by the lawmakers to the President within three weeks.

The House had unanimously on April 11, 2019, adopted a motion with the mandate to issue a query to the President, asking him to explain the spate of insecurity under his administration within 48 hours.

The lawmakers resolved to “request that the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces address the House and the entire nation within 48 hours”

At the plenary on Tuesday, another motion was adopted on the security crises in parts of Katsina State, asking the chamber to re-invite the President.