Kaduna summit: Stop hiding under security conference, group tells Bugaje

The Northern Think Tank group has rejected the planned security conference by the Arewa Research & Development Project (ARDP).

ARDP had through its leader, Usman Bugaje, called for more proactive measures in addressing the security situation in some parts of northern Nigeria.

To provide solutions to these challenges, Bugaje announced that the group would be organising a conference on northern security which is scheduled to hold July 1 and July 2, at the Sir Ahmadu Bello Foundation conference in Kaduna.

But in a statement, the group described the move by Bugaje and his followers as misleading, warning its leader, to stop “hiding his atrocities under security conference.”

“A group of disgruntled politicians under the aegis of Arewa Research & Development Project (ARDP) has announced plans for a Northern Security Conference billed to hold in Kaduna from July 1-2, 2019,” the statement read.

“ARDP is supposedly convened by one Dr. Usman Bugaje, a politician that has in the past played both sides of the game since he has been in government and in opposition, depending on what faction proves to be more lucrative.

“The last time this politician had any news mention of note was when he declined the offer to serve Nigeria as an ambassadorial nominee. We have since discovered that his reason for declining the appointment was he was aware that he would not have scaled security clearance because of the many activities he was engaged in with some of his other associates.

“Interestingly, it is this same set of people that are today announcing that they are giving northern Nigeria a security conference to discuss the same problem they helped created. While it is very possible that the same people that started a problem (or series of problems) may hold the key to the resolution, logic dictates that we question the motive behind this offer of proffering solution that is coming from the architects of the nation’s problems.

“In the prevent press briefing addressed by Dr. Bugaje, ARDP listed the security challenges confronting the country to include Boko Haram, banditry, kidnap for ransom, ethno-religious crisis, and farmers-herders crisis. It does not take a doctorate in security to figure that all these are security challenges that have their roots in the proliferation of arms that was actively promoted the political class.

“We are not unaware of the contribution of corruption to the toxic mix we are today dealing with. Bugaje and his co-travellers can lie to themselves all they want but it will pay them to acknowledge that the time is nigh for them to give an account of how their cohort enriched themselves as opposed to truly serving the people. Had the people being properly empowered as opposed to politicians building mansions the extreme poverty that is fuelling some of these problems would not have been in existence.

The conference announced by ARDP is, therefore, a smokescreen for achieving other objectives as the situation on the ground does not call for holding talk shops for grandstanding by people that already know what the causes of the problems are. We understanding that this grandstanding is aimed at unveiling a divisive agenda as the participants of this meeting plan to claim that President Muhammadu Buhari is not serving the term of the north hence the north will be again be presenting a candidate in 2023. But even this agenda is a ruse because the actual target of the conference is to provide justification for a planned forceful hijack of the government or at the very least some of its core functions.”