DISTURBED by the unabated killings in the Southern Kaduna and other parts of the country, the Middle Belt Forum (MBF) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to resign or be ready to secure the lives and properties of the citizens.
This is coming less than 24 hours after the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), raised the alarm that the country is dying in Buhari’s hands, calling for his resignation. MBF national president, Dr Bitrus Pogu, who made the call in an interview with Sunday Tribune, said Buhari has failed and the country under him has become a failed state.
Pogu was angry at the seeming lethargy on the part of the president in addressing the various killings that have been going on in the country. He urged Nigerians to rise up and support the Senate’s call for the sack of the service chiefs who he said are being retained by President Buhari despite their “dismal performance.”
“Nigeria has to rise up and support the Senate. Let the president do the needful or leave because he has failed. What we have in this country now is a failed state,” Pogu said. He accused President Buhari of supporting aggressors who go about killing the people of the Middle Belt in the Southern part of Kaduna and other parts of the North in “a calculated attempt to displace the natives and take over their land.”
Pogu noted that the insecurity in parts of the North affecting mainly the Middle Belt people bears the imprimatur of an orchestrated Northern agenda to exterminate the Middle Belt. “The attackers in Southern Kaduna want to grab and they are using all excuses to kill us and the government seems to be on their side, given the statements from the likes of Governor el-Rufai, Graba Shehu and all these characters.
“We don’t know if the North has an ulterior motive in the long run, something like chase away the Middle Belters. I don’t know, but the whole thing is condemnable. “It is not only in southern Kaduna, but these killings are all over. It is unfortunate that the head of government is a Fulani, a man who made promises before he was elected and before the 2019 election campaigned with the mantra ‘next level.’ Is the ‘next level’ about exterminating people and taking over their lands?” he queried.
He called for an overhaul of the security architecture of the country, adding that it was an embarrassment that President Buhari is retaining the service chiefs despite their “dismal performance.” “All that matters in the security circles are from one side of the country and from the same religion and are not performing, yet the president is still keeping them,” he said.
…Allow us to defend ourselves with arms- Southern Kaduna president
Also reacting to the killings, the president, Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU), Dr Jonathan Asake, said the Southern Kaduna people are under the siege of Fulani terrorists who are going from one community to another, killing people and chasing them out of their ancestral land.
According to him, the attack was a conspiracy against the people of Southern Kaduna both by the government of the day and the invaders. “If the government is sincere and committed to finding peace, the government should go after these invaders that are going from one local government to another, killing mostly women and children.
“Government should not misrepresent fact by saying it is a farmer and herders clash. Those killed were not killed on their farms, but in their houses. “Secondly, there should be a joint task force where the youths will join the security agents to keep vigilance over the community.
The community should be empowered to carry minimal arms,” he said. In his own reaction, the president of Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), Reverend Stephen Panya, in a statement, said the manner in which the attacks were being launched against the Christian communities of Southern Kaduna suggested that the invaders are encamped in the not too far location from the village.
He accused the state and the Federal Governments of not doing much to confront the attackers. “We have said it several times that in the face of the dismal security situation, the time is long overdue for the service chiefs to go. We once more emphatically lend our voices in full support of the resolution adopted by the Senate during the plenary, calling on the service chiefs to resign or be sacked by the president due to the prolong security challenges in the country.
“The leadership of the security architecture of the country needs to be urgently restructured for it to be more inclusive and to reflect the various diversities of our nation, in order to be more effective in accomplishing its mandate of protection of lives and properties of the citizens and defend our nation from internal insurgency and external aggression,” he said.
Reverend Panya called on the Kaduna State government in particular and the Federal Government to show more commitment and sincerity in securing the Christian communities in the southern part of Kaduna and appealed to them to also reach out to those displaced.
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