National Chairman of the Patriots, Prof Ben Nwabueze, has said that President Muhammadu Buharis alleged islamisation agenda for Nigeria was beclouding his ability to rule the country as a sovereign nation.
In a statement entitled, The quit notice, hate speeches and President Buhari’s Northernisation/Islamisation Agenda, issued in Enugu Saturday evening, Nwabueze said that Buhari was more interested in the unity of the Northern Nigeria than that of the Nigerian Republic, adding that this was why he was running a one-sided administration against the Southern part of the country.
He said that the President’s undisguised, unabashed favouritism and solicitude for a united Northern Nigeria arouses in him and his fellow northerners a renewed sense of solidarity in defence of whatever they perceive, rightly or wrongly, to be its interest, and inclines them to adopt antagonistic, even confrontational stance towards southerners in discussions of national affairs, thereby disabling them from approaching national issues in the spirit of what the interest of the nation as a whole demands.”
He chided Buhari for declaring the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, a terrorist orgainsation instead of the Arewa Youths which carried out hate speeches against Ndigbo and gave them quite notice to leave the north whuile he wqas on medicat tourism abroad.
The chairman listed such national issues to include “re-structuring, Fulani herdsmen insurgency” among others.
His words, “Second, his bias for the Fulani herdsmen and their masters, the Cattle Breeders Association (Miyetti Allah) is the aspect of his lack of impartiality that most compromises his position as leader of the nation.
“This is manifested in his inability or unwillingness to take firm, decisive actions against the herdsmen’s killings in Benue, Taraba and Zamfara States in particular, and against Miyetti Allah’s blunt, anarchic refusal to abide and be bound by the Anti-Open Grazing Law of those states, which is the governing law there until declared unconstitutional, null and void by the courts.
“The President should not condone anarchy by anyone, the Miyetti Allah people not exempted. Gratifyingly, the herdsmen are said to be now “willing to abide by the Benue State anti-open grazing law,”… according to a media report on February 14, 2018.
“Third, the President’s favouritism for the North in pursuance of his Northernisation Agenda is again betrayed in a markedly unabashed manner by his reinstatement of the Director-General of the National Insurance Health Scheme, NIHS, Professor Usman Yusuf, a northerner, suspended for alleged financial impropriety by the Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole whose ministry has supervisory authority over the scheme.
“The re-instatement betrays favouritism for the Director-General in two main ways. The DG’s statement that he is answerable only to the President as the authority that appointed him, but not to the minister, is an unpardonable act of insubordination, deserving to be severely reprimanded, not condoned…”