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‘Usurpation of power, bizarre, and reckless military intrusion,’ that’s how Bode George describes army’s ‘operation positive identification’

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Focus on fixing Nigeria's deplorable roads not 2023, Bode George counsels Fashola

A former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), South West, Chief Olabode George, on Wednesday, decried the possible implication of the planned “operation positive identification” by the military.

He lamented that the exercise which had been slated to commence nationwide on November 1 and during which military personnel would demand means of identification from all citizens would generate controversies.

He said: “The operation positive identification by the military will not only undermine the democracy and but also amounts to a flagrant disregard for the fundamental rights of the citizens and military usurpation of the powers of other law enforcement agencies.

“The decision to begin with is totally wrong-footed, dangerous, unprecedented, a flagrant assault upon constitutional democracy.

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“The hair- brain idea is not only disturbing, but it is also distortion and an abuse of the established military role which is basically to protect the territorial integrity of our nation. The military cannot and should not assume the role of law enforcement agencies.

“We are not in a state of emergency or in some chaotic lawlessness which could necessitate military aid to civil authority. And it is hardly within the purview of the military to start issuing nationwide instruction that affects the lives of all citizens when we are not in a military government.

“I urge the members of the National Assembly to rise up promptly to their responsibilities by demanding that President Muhammadu Buhari should immediately halt the misguided and bizarre military attempt to subvert the very core of our democracy.

“Our nation is already afflicted with so much stress and conflicts of ambiguous leadership tasking and overburdened people. Mounting an unnecessary, reckless military intrusion upon all this is to inflame a tensed and unstable polity.”

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