Afenifere, PDP flay Buhari over interview

The Pan Yoruba Socio-Political group, Afenifere, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Thursday, flayed President Muhammadu Buhari’s interview.

The Secretary-General of Afenifere, Chief Sola Ebiseni, faulted President Buhari’s claims during an interview with Arise TV.

Speaking on the lopsided appointments of President Buhari, the Afenifere said “The President’s claim that his appointment in the armed forces is based on merit and seniority and not to satisfy geopolitical zones, is a violation of the letters and intendment of the provisions of sections 217-220 dealing with the Armed Forces of the federation and appointments thereto.

“Specifically, Section 217 (3) provides that the composition of the officer corps and other ranks of the armed forces of the federation shall reflect the Federal character of Nigeria.

“In Section 219, all the powers given the President including the appointment of Service Chiefs is subject to the Act of the National Assembly ensuring the reflection of the Federal character. Even his latest appointment of the Chief of Army Staff is flawed, particularly on seniority.

“The constitution never contemplates nor approve of the situation under Buhari where 90 per cent of the commanding heights of the armed forces and security architecture will be from only northern Nigeria and only the two zones of North East and North West.

“In any case, anyone familiar with the history of Buhari leadership will appreciate that he is the only Nigerian leader, even among military Heads of state, whose government, himself, second in command as Chief of staff Supreme headquarters (Idiagbom) and top echelon were all northerners. It was after his death that many Nigerians knew Idiagbon was Fulani of Ilorin.”

Afenifere noted that President Buhari confirmed his position in the interview that the ban on open grazing by the Governors of the Southern part of the country was illegal.

Ebiseni said: “The President owned up to the statements of Garba Shehu, his spokesman, that the ban on open grazing by the Governors was illegal and he could not make a new statement that would contradict him.

“He is delighted that Governors are Chief Security Officers without any security powers, yet he asked two of the South-West Governors to exercise non-existent power to deal with terrorist herdsmen who he acknowledged bear arms, even as foreigners, against Nigerian citizens.

“Let the President be told that the Yoruba people are solidly behind our Governors that not an inch of land in our territory will be carved out for any grazing reserves or cattle Colony.”

Also condemning Buhari’s position on IPOB, Afenifere said: “The President takes delight in ridiculing the Ndigbo which he used IPOB to represent. Thus, to him, the Igbo and their territory is just a dot in a circle of the map of Nigeria, which even if the secede could exit to nowhere since the elders and youths of the South-South had assured him of not being part of the secessionist agenda.

“He couldn’t have been reacting to the IPOB but the Igbo who he said had businesses everywhere. His utterances were very unpresidential and in the mode of common expressions with some unidentifiable northern organisations.”

Meanwhile, The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that it is appalled by President Muhammadu Buhari’s interview aired on Arise Television.

The main opposition party made this declaration in a press conference addressed by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, in Abuja.

He said the party is dismayed that while millions of Nigerians eagerly expected President Buhari to use the interview to address salient issues confronting our nation, he “bungled the opportunity by being evasive and dodgy while attempting to lay claims to projects done by PDP administrations.”

The PDP accused Buhari of trying to devalue the achievements of the former ruling party, positing: “On Infrastructure, it is ludicrous to us in the PDP that Mr President can disingenuously seek to subtract the deliverables achieved by past PDP administration from his so-called achievement on infrastructure.

“The PDP places it on record and we know that Nigerians are also aware that President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was elected on the platform of the PDP, introduced a 25 years national development plan upon assumption of office in 1999.

“This included the massive construction and expansion of road network, power plants, railways projects, inland and coastal waterways, airports, housing, agricultural and health projects as well as the establishment of new universities and other legacy projects in various parts of our country.

“We want to inform President Buhari, since he is not always aware, that successive governments elected on the platform of the PDP built on these development plans leading to the expansion of major trunk roads across our country, railways and other legacy projects which, probably, his handlers are making him to believe are his.

“It is on record that President Goodluck Jonathan also took on a massive expansion of our international and domestic airports, across the country, built and commissioned railway stations.

“It is instructive to state that where projects were yet to be completed, it is only a natural occurrence for any Nigerian elected as President to proceed, in the national interest, to complete such projects.”

The PDP said it, therefore, considers it tacky for President Buhari to seek to claim any credit for projects he never conceptualized, commenced or built to near completion, just because he found himself in office at the point of completion.

The party added: “Should Mr President be reminded that even the expansion of the Presidential Villa including the Banquet Hall, which his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) uses today as its National Secretariat was conceptualised and built by the PDP government, though leaders of the APC stood stoutly against the project while it was on-going?

“President Buhari also needs to accept the bitter fact that the current drawback in infrastructural development in our country started with his administration. Like a relay race, successive PDP administrations furthered infrastructural development only for him to run the opposite direction when the baton was passed to him.

“It is important to state that only the ongoing refurbishing of Akwanga-Maiduguri road that President Buhari can lay claim to as the singular and only project in which he has demonstrated capacity.

“The expectation of Nigerians is that in an interview like this, Mr President should give honour to those who conceptualized and built these projects to near completion and, in most cases, only for him to perform the commissioning ceremony.

“Mr President must also be reminded that all institutions of good governance under the contemporary dispensation including the EFCC, ICPC, the Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) and Debt Management Office (DMO) among others were PDP’s creation.

“Even the Sovereign Wealth Fund, which has become the referral point for his administration, was created by the PDP with stiff opposition from leaders of the APC, like former Governors Rotimi Amaechi and Adams Oshiomhole.

“On the issue of devolution of power, state police and restructuring, it is disappointing and heartrending that Mr President was evasive, dodgy and had no direct response to these burning issues even in the face of a national consensus for the amendment of the1999 Constitution to address these pertinent issues.”

The PDP blasted President Buhari over his treatment of two southwest governors who approached him over the cattle rearers’ killing of flier people.

The party maintained: “It is also alarming that Mr President, in his own words, dismissed two governors who ran to him for a solution to issues of national security, with escalated killings, kidnapping and violence in their states.

“That action as revealed by Mr President is very disturbing because, as the commander-in-chief, on whose shoulder rests the responsibility of securing our nation, and who also promised to lead from the front, his reaction ought not to have been dismissive of the said governors.

“This action as narrated by Mr President clearly showed how he abdicated his responsibility and yet was audacious to come to the public arena and made open his personal flaws and failures that have affected the foundation of our national security and emboldened terrorists, kidnappers and bandits to attack and kill our compatriots.”

On the issue of fuel subsidy, the PDP stated that it is a known fact that cross-boarder crimes like smuggling have a negative effect on the prices of petroleum products.

It added: “While this constitutes a challenge to our economy, the fundamental issue which Mr President dodged in the interview is the sleazy nature of subsidy policy under his administration.

“Mr President failed to tell Nigerians how the volume of PMS used in our country progressed exponentially from 35 million litres per day to the current fictitious 100 million litres per day, upon which his administration’s subsidy payout is calculated.

“On corruption, we invite Nigerians to note that President Buhari admitted in the interview, that corruption was endemic in his administration; that there are corrupt persons in his administration and his party, but that he devised a way of easing them out and thus giving them official covers instead of exposing such persons and allowing them to face the law. This validates our position that the Buhari Administration is a sanctuary of corruption.

“It is also distressing that President Buhari used the interview to issue threats to Nigerians as well as justify the nepotism that has characterized appointment of key officials of his administration to the chagrin of our national sensibilities.

“Such disposition to our national sensibilities is a recipe for further divisions and violence in our country.

“Most disheartening is that in the face of grave security concerns across the federation, President Buhari proffered no solutions, even when he admitted that insecurity has almost overwhelmed his administration.

“Also, though he lamented the invasion of our national territory by Sahelians, Mr President did not introduce any concrete measure that can vanquish this set of criminals.

“The interview session was, therefore, a Presidential demonstration of the challenges confronting our nation without a modicum of solution either now or in the future. It was all about buck-passing, grandstanding and a holier-than-thou disposition of the Buhari Presidency.”

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Afenifere, PDP flay Buhari over interview