TERRORISM, ECONOMY: Change your method, Mr President, Afenifere tells Tinubu

Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has called on President Bola Tinubu change whatever method being used to address the scourge of terror and state of the nation’s economy, if he hopes to achieve success.

The group called on the president to go hard on terrorists and those sponsoring terrorism in the country so as to serve as a deterrent to criminal elements.

The group which made the call in a statement on Monday while reacting to recent abductions of school children in Kaduna and Sokoto States last week, said the President should not shirk in his responsibilities and must not leave room for excuses.

A statement jointly signed by Afenifere’s Publicity Secretary and Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Mogaji Gboyega Adejumo and Prince Justice Faloye respectively, decried the fact that Nigeria is witnessing yet another ugly episode of evil chapter in its history.

“Kaduna, witnessing yet another ugly and ominous recrudescence of the repetitive, extremely evil chapter in the human history of the Nigerian state. Mr Present, your turn to be served,” the statement reads.

“The recrudescence of this human tragedy is as clear to the Afenifere as the daylight is distinct from the eventide.

“Since this democracy took off, this pattern remains constant, ever present;

“Create chaos, destabilize the government, embarrass the President, finally, and disgrace the President out of office.

“No president since 1999 has escaped this scourge, coming with the political Sharia against Obasanjo, the Niger Delta violent political agitation of Obasanjo and Yar’Adua and cleverly solved by the duo.

“The Boko Haram religio-later-turned-political instrument to embarrass a sitting southern Christian president as it was with Jonathan, who was told to convert to Islam, followed by the kidnapping extraordinaire of the Chibok girls’ type, the final shuck that shocked Jonathan out of office.

“The Abikus, coming once a regime and for repeated times from as far back as the Zango Kataf crisis, came with land grabbing, human displacement and subjugation of a people over another, often planned, aided, lauded and prompted by those self-styled as owners of Nigeria.

“They were terrorists; Buhari curiously preferred to call them bandits. Their acts as aggressors, killing farmers, destroying their produce, stealing indigenous peoples’ lands, clearly marked them as terrorists.

“Buhari’s government would rather term these acts as farmers/herders clashes. The most disturbing expository, elucidatory, explicative realities about the whole saga is that these terrorists are known to government.

“Mr President, you have to be brutally reminded of these re-crudescences in history, a disease constant, an Abiku, real, clear and present.

“On Christmas Eve in 2023, there was a massacre on the Plateau. Chief Ayo Adebanjo, leader of Afenifere, led other leaders that make up the four zones from the South-West, South-East, South-South and the Middle-Belt on a condolence visit to the Governor and to the Gbong Gwom Jos and to the entire people on the Plateau. About 300 humans were slaughtered like rams.

“A hero makes history, is not afraid, and does not turn a blind eye. Mr President, arrest these perpetrators now, no excuses Mr President.

“Any wonder then that terror continues to abate, untamed, unshackled? Nigerians woke up to yet another slaughter in the hundreds and kidnappings in the two hundreds in yet another school in Kaduna.

“It is down to you, Mr President, if you would rather go the way of your predecessors, by looking the other way and let innocent blood flow, be disgraced and set for an early exit or find the strength, the will and the courage to face the sponsors of terror, with the resolve to eradicating this Abiku scourge from ever again taking root anywhere in our land.

“Through your policies, fiscal and monetary, the local currency has suffered the worst trajectory of devaluation of 35% in just your very first nine months in office, the very first massive devastation in the history of this country.

“The Nigerian naira plunged to its lowest point on record in official trading as a shortage of US dollars persisted despite promises by the government to boost supply.

“Our people are dying due to hunger. Nigeria has become the hunger capital of the world. How are the people, so impoverished be saddled with paying ransom to kidnappers right in the middle of possibly the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world that even Ukraine a country at war with Russia lasting two year and still counting, is now the one to be sending humanitarian aid to Nigeria?

“Let the people begin to see a change Mr President; a challenge being tackled over the years with same methods, cannot yield a different result from a certain failure. Change your method, Mr President.

“Go after the sponsors of terror. Restructure this country. Expedite the action towards the creation of state police. Return the country to parliamentary system of government. Bring back regionalism.

“And watch our countrymen and our hopeless children begin to live again in dignity, right before your very eyes.”

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