Calling on President Buhari

I was born a few years after your reign as Nigeria’s military Head of State from December 1983 to August 1985. Growing up as a precocious child with a prodigious talent for reading anything in print, I read newspapers and naturally developed a passion for politics from this and discussions with my father.

One of the things I remember him tell me was that the only people who came close to making Nigeria a great country where everything works was the Buhari/Idiagbon regime as they paid back almost all of Nigeria’s foreign debt and those of us who were living in Lagos then, came very close to having 24-hours uninterrupted power supply daily.

He also added that, “though they were poor on human rights, their administration’s War Against Indiscipline and Corruption was on course to making Nigeria a corruption-free nation but they were short-lived in power”

Instantly, I knew I had found a hero, a mentor and a role model in my quest to see a better Nigeria during my lifetime. I was in Secondary School when you joined politics in 2002 and contested for the 2003 Presidential Elections alongside Dr Chuba Okadigbo and I gave you my support though I did not have the franchise. I was laughed at and was the butt of derisive jokes but I was undeterred and continued to support you in the 2007 and 2011 elections with the same cycle of events till 2015 when you were finally elected as President and promised to do three major things for Nigerians; fight corruption, rescue the economy from recession and fight insecurity.

This is the issue of insecurity in parts of Nigeria leading to massive loss of lives and destruction of properties by marauding bands of Fulani herdsmen. I know you are very much aware of the atrocious activities of some of your kinsmen but permit me to highlight some of the implications of your silence on the menace of Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria. Your silence on this issue gives confirmation to rumours making the rounds that you are a sectional leader who places the interest of your kith and kin above that of the rest of Nigeria, that while you were busy solving the security problems in the core North by fighting Boko Haram, you have deliberately turned a blind eye to issues of insecurity caused by your tribesmen in other parts of the country.

It also reinforces conspiracy theories that you are not in charge of the government. Mr President, your predecessors in office did all that they could to fight insecurity in Nigeria even when such acts were perpetuated by criminal gangs who were from the same tribe with them.

Olusegun Obasanjo issued a “shoot-at-sight” order on OPC, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan used federal patronage to silence most of the militant groups in the Niger Delta, Umar Musa Yar’adua forcefully crushed the Boko Haram rebellion in Maiduguri, Borno State, Please sir, why is your own case different?

I support the call for the immediate proscription of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) and the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore just the same way IPOB was proscribed by the Nigerian Army and the South East Governors Forum.

It is also an open secret that you were the Grand Patron of MACBAN for several years even up until 2015; use your contacts in MACBAN to fish out the criminal elements among them. The security agencies should also be empowered with up-to-date Intelligence gathering gadgets to forstall future attacks by Fulani herdsmen on innocent citizens. If you can do all these, it will save me from future shame and embarrassment from family and friends who taunt me daily about the inability of Mr President to bring an end to the violence perpetuated by his kinsmen against innocent and defenseless civilians

Peter Ovie Akus

Plot 16, Block 33, Ogun Housing Estate, Ifo, Ogun State.