Killings: Northern Elders Ask Buhari To Resign

The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has demanded immediate resignation of President Muhammadu Buhari over the raging killings across the country, especially in the north.

Director, Publicity and Advocacy, NEF, Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, in a statement yesterday, said Buhari’s administration did not appear to have answers to the security challenges “to which we are exposed.”

He said: “We cannot continue to live and die under the dictates of killers, kidnappers, rapists and sundry criminal groups that have deprived us of our rights to live in peace and security.”

He noted that Nigeria’s constitution has provisions for leaders to voluntarily step down if they are challenged by personal reasons or they prove incapable of leading.

According to him, “It is now time for President Buhari to seriously consider that option, since his leadership has proved spectacularly incapable of providing security over Nigerians. Our forum is aware of the weight of this advice, and it is also aware that we cannot continue to live under these conditions until 2023 when President Buhari’s term ends.”

He said the forum made the recommendation with the highest sense of responsibility and expressed hope “there are enough Nigerians who enjoy the confidence of President Buhari to advise him to consider resigning.”

Baba-Ahmed decried that killings and assaults on communities had become daily features of lives of all Nigerians “as traveling anywhere is now risky, and the option of staying put does not make anyone safer.”

He said: “Killers and other criminals appear to have sensed a paralyzing vacuum at the highest levels of leadership, and they grow more confident and acquire more competence in subverting the State and our security.

“Nigerians have shed enough tears and blood without appropriate response from those with responsibilities to protect us.”

He advised politicians aspiring to lead the nation to weigh their capacities, commitments and challenges of leadership very carefully.

He said leading Nigeria out of its current state and placing it firmly on the path of rediscovery “is not an all-comers’ affair and that Nigerians will exercise greater levels of discretion in deciding who they can trust in future.

“There are also groups who deepen the concerns of Nigerians over the possibility of a safe and free campaigning and conduct of the 2023 elections. Comments which threaten those parochial political demands must be met, rather than negotiated or processed through the democratic process threaten all Nigerians and hint at a wider space for violence in the run-up to the elections, and after it.

“These comments are unbecoming of elders, and they detract from the genuine and difficult search for good leaders who will be totally committed to one nation with very serious challenges.”

He said NEF re-committed to engagements and dialogue with all politicians and groups to seek the lowering of tensions and stresses representing threats to the nation’s democratic process.

He said the forum condoled families who had lost members and prayed with those whose members were kidnapped that they would be re-united without further delay.