From Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
For restating his opposition to state police and restructuring, and for saying he would not consider any political solutions in the trial of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), President Muhammadu Buhari has come under attack from the Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural and political organisation, Afenifere, and the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE).
In separate interviews with Saturday Sun on Friday, the two leading Yoruba groups contended that the statements made by Buhari during a recent interview, showed that he had either lost touch with reality, or he was not being properly briefed by people around him on the true situation of things in the country.
National Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, Mr. Jare Ajayi, said: “It’s so sad that in spite of various advocacies that have been made, in spite of the appeals and agitations that have been made along this line, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria could still maintain the kind of stand he enunciated in his interview, because these are the areas where the solutions to the multi-various problems that Nigeria has, lie.”
Secretary-General of YCE, Dr. Kunle Olajide, also noted Buhari “was expressing his personal opinion and to my opinion, he has not been able to really see himself as combining his personal opinion with the headship of Nigerian state. So, one wonders if he is truly really very patriotic, as some of us have held him to be.”
On restructuring, Afenifere stated that: “There is no way Nigeria can do without restructuring. So, it is a pity that Mr. President has not seen that.” But YCE is pushing for a new constitution for the country, saying the 1999 constitution is a fraud and that the 1963 and 1958 Constitutions of Nigeria should be the way to go. He added that the new constitution would ensure restructuring of the country into a truly federal system.
Olajide said: “You cannot compel us to live under a unitary system. In fact, I don’t agree with restructuring because it really should be one of the byproducts of a new constitution. A new constitution is what will ease the problem of Nigeria.”
Reacting to tBuhari’s opposition to state police, Afenifere stated: “By saying no to state police, he is saying that Nigeria is no longer being run under a federal system because state police is a component of the federal system of government, which means each layer of government, federal, state and local should have their own security outfits. When I was growing up, I knew native authority police (akoda) of the native council, which is an equivalent of local governments today. It made taking care of security at the local level easier.”
But for YCE, Olajide said: “There is no country in the world as diverse as Nigeria that has a centralized police system. One, Nigeria is made up of different ethnic groups with different culture, history, habits, backgrounds and religions. When you are bringing different people together to form a country, they must sit down to agree on the basis of their union. That is what gave birth to the United States in 1776. The 13 colonies had to sit together to agree on powers to be ceded to the centre and the powers that each of them would hold in the federating units. So, you cannot run Nigeria as under a unitary system of government and unitary system of security.
“On the issue of no political solution to free self-determination agitators like Nnamdi Kanu and Chief Sunday Adeyemo, better known as Sunday Igboho, everything about that issue is political. For the president to say there is no political solution, it means he is not been realistic. He is not in touch with reality because the whole issue is political. This is giving us an impression that those who surround the president are not briefing him properly for him to be in touch with reality.
And, through their spokesman, the Yoruba elders noted: “There is no where in the world where any president rules out political solution to a problem. Even, people who committed murder, they were granted amnesty after some time in incarceration. For me, such a blanket statement is misplaced. Igboho did not breach any of the Nigerian laws. He was exercising his fundamental human rights. He expressed his opinion that he wants his people to go with him to a separate country. It was his opinion. In United Kingdom, it happens that citizens can abuse the Prime Minister and nothing will happen. We never heard that Igboho killed anybody anywhere. So, for Igboho, it has to be a political solution. Though I don’t know much about Nnamdi Kanu, the president cannot rule out political solution. It was not a mischief, but a misplaced statement.”