- Abaribe’s call on Buhari to resign is foolish — Presidency
The Senate Minority Leader, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe, on Wednesday, asked President Muhammadu Buhari to resign because of the rising insecurity in the country.
Abaribe stated this while contributing to a motion entitled ‘Nigerian security challenges: Urgent need to restructure, review and re-organise the current security architecture’, moved by the Senate Leader, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi, and 105 other senators.
He tackled the president for the failure to protect the lives and properties of Nigerians.
He said “Boko Haram has been defeated, Nigeria is now safer, everything that was being done to make sure that the hard work that was supposed to be done in securing Nigeria was not done because certain people did not do their work but preferred to cover the eyes of Nigerians with propaganda and trying to find all these excuses for non-performance, have now come to stare us in the face.
“Nigeria did not elect the IGP, we did not elect the chief of staff, we did not elect the joint-chiefs or national security adviser. We elected the government of APC in 2015 and re-elected them in 2019. The reason we re-elected them is that they continued to tell us that they had the key to security.
“When you want to deal with a matter, you go to the head, so we will go to the government and ask this government to resign because they can no longer do anything,” he said.
He was interrupted by Senate President Ahmad Lawan who cautioned him against being partisan.
“Because they saw improvement in their lives, they voted APC again in 2019. I don’t want us to be partisan. I will advise against hate speech,” he said.
Lawan, thereafter, asked the lawmakers to contribute to the debate in such a manner that will solve the problem.
Abaribe continued, “government even said if ‘we don’t perform, stone us’, we are going with the stones to stone them now.”
In his contribution, Senator Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa West), condemned Mr Abaribe’s comments and demanded that he withdraw them.
In its swift reaction, the Presidency last night tackled Abaribe.
Through a statement by a presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, the presidency said Buhari will not quit.
“President Buhari to resign on what basis? Just because some characters think that President Buhari should resign, then they expect him to quit. That call does not represent the opinion of the country. This is the opinion of an arm chair critic, known for making stray comments.
“If a leader like President Buhari needs to resign, there are millions of other Nigerians who need to resign, including Senator Abaribe who unlocked the door to enable the escape of traitorous and treasonable suspects.
“He signed the bond for the court to release Nnamdi Kanu on bail, from which moment the suspect disappeared into the thin air. Senator Abaribe has failed repeated deadlines to return Kanu to the court for trial, yet he has the effrontery with which to accuse someone of failing to the bidding of the law.
“This is a man who should have replaced the suspects he failed to produce in the correctional facility.
“Abaribe’s party raped the nation and left it collapsing in 2015 and President Buhari is fixing things up all the years he is in office.
“President Buhari is working hard to keep Nigeria and Nigerians out of the harm terrorists have unleashed in the entire Sahel and Sub-Saharan Africa with the support of Nigerians and our foreign friends, he is going to finish off these terrorists. He alone can do it.”
