Prominent Nigerians, including the Sultan of Sokoto and President-General, Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, on Thursday, advised the Federal Government to sit up and urgently address the rising insecurity in the country.
While the Sultan spoke in Abuja at the third quarterly meeting of the Nigeria Interreligious Council, the Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, gave a similar warning in a statement by his media aide, Terver Akase.
The monarch and the governor’s warning came two days after gunmen attacked the Nigerian Defence Academy and abducted a military officer after killing two others.
Ortom, while reacting to an attack on him by the Presidency, warned that with the rate that insecurity was increasing in the country, bandits and killer herdsmen might one day take over the Aso Rock Villa without any resistance.
The governor warned that danger was looming with the way the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), was handling the security situation in the country.
Ortom, had in an interview with Channels Television a few days ago accused the President of trying to “Fulanise” the country.
He said this while reacting to Buhari’s approval of the recommendations of a committee to review 368 grazing reserves across 25 states in the country.
But the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in a statement on Wednesday, accused Ortom of using sectarian language similar to that which caused the Rwandan genocide.
On Thursday, the governor, through his media aide, Akase, said Nigerians might wake up one day to find out that armed herders, bandits and other terrorists had taken over Aso Rock Villa without any resistance and the current occupants would flee the country.
Ortom described the statement by the Presidency against him as a reflection of the quality of its thinking.
“The tone of the said statement shows the quality of the Presidency Nigeria currently has. They abandoned the message and went for the messenger,” the governor was quoted as saying.
He said that the Presidency should focus on ending the killing of innocent Nigerians, fix the economy as it promised and stop the stinking corruption under its watch.
The statement said, “They can’t run away from their responsibility. They were brought to power to serve the country and not to oppress the people and suppress their freedom of speech.
“They are on record to have publicly promised during their campaigns before the 2015 elections that they would respect the rights and freedoms of Nigerians if elected. Sadly, what the people of this country have got from the current government is the opposite of that promise.
“The agenda of the present administration is to Islamise and Fulanise the nation like former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Prof Kunle Olawunmi and other patriotic Nigerians have rightly said.
“Governor Ortom urges the good people of this country to caution the Presidency before it destroys Nigeria. If nothing is done fast to avert the impending disaster, armed herders, bandits and other terrorists will one day take over Aso Rock Villa and those occupying the Villa at the moment will willingly surrender to them and flee the country.
“No day passes without reports of herdsmen and other terrorists killing defenceless Nigerians in parts of the country. The number of displaced people has risen to millions, yet, the Presidency wants everyone to remain silent while the country burns.”
While promising that he would continue to talk, the governor’s aide said, “Let it be on record that while the Presidency deliberately destroyed Nigeria, someone spoke against the evil.
“Governor Ortom stands by his words that this is not the first time a Fulani man is President of Nigeria, and also that it is the first time the country has been divided on ethnic lines with lopsided appointments in promotion and celebration of nepotism, marginalisation and open repugnance of other Nigerians.
“At no time in the history of this country have impunity, blatant disregard for laws, sectarian as well as ethnic differences been fuelled by the government as we now see.”
He said for the Presidency to have called him “undistinguished” despite his career at the state and national levels, showed that the piece was written under the influence of some negative substances.
