As the 2019 Elections approaches, the plot against the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC thickens as various groups across the country have started working against the interest of the party in the forthcoming elections.
The latest attacks on the APC comes as the leadership of the mainstream socio-cultural groups in Nigeria; Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo and the Arewa Consultative Forum said yesterday that they had lost confidence in the leadership ability of the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC and resolved to work to ensure a new leader emerges at the Federal level in the forthcoming 2019 elections.
The leaders of the major socio-cultural organisations made their collective deceision known during a summit of Nigerian Elders and Leaders which had leaders from the three major socio-cultural groups as well as leaders from the Middle-Belt forum, Northern Elders Forum as well as the Pan Niger Delta Forum in attendance.
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The leaders reviewed the State of the Nation in terms of the economy, security, human rights, as well as recent political developments in the country.
The leaders indicted the Buhari Administration for lapses in governance accusing the administration of drifting from the liberal democratic path which Nigerians had fought for over the years.
The leaders of the various socio-cultural groups in attendance include;
Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Chief Edwin Clark, Air Commodore Dan Suleiman, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, Senator Suleiman Dansadau, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, Prof. Gordini Darah and Senator Bassaey Ewa Henshaw.
Others at the event include the Secretary of the Afenifere, Mr. Yinka Odumakin as well as Dr. Alfred Mulade, spokesman for the Pan-Niger Delta Forum.
The summit which lasted for several hours behind closed doors observed that democracy had been persistently assaulted under the current APC led administration following the rise of calculated assaults on constitutional governance and rule of law in the country.
The socio-cultural leaders resolved that there was an urgent need for Nigerians to seek a new leadership that will not only arrest the slide away from democracy and the rule of law, but will ensure the emergence of a truly federal, constitutional democracy in Nigeria.
At the end of the summit, the leaders jointly issued a communiqué where they decried the continued incarceration of persons lawfully granted bail by courts of competent jurisdiction including the ECOWAS court as well as the continued harassment and detention of journalists and media persons across the country.
They warned that if the recent slide was not checkmated, the country would descend into a full blown dictatorship where the rights of the citizens can no longer be guaranteed by the constitution.
Excerpts from the Statement read;
“This is clearly evident in the unlawful freezing of the accounts of some governments of the federating units; continuous illegal detention of citizens in spite of court orders granting them bail, as in the cases of Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd), former National Security Adviser (NSA) and Ibrahim EI-Zakzaky, the leader of Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN); the illegal arrest, detention and mistreatment of 120 women exercising their legitimate rights to peaceful protest in Imo State; the incarceration of journalists, suppression and clampdown on media practitioners, thereby impeding not only on the freedom of the press, but also the right to information; regular denial of access to public utilities to political opponents and extra judicial killings in the country.
This ugly trend culminated in the invasion of the National Assembly by the Department of State Services (DSS) on August 7, 2018 in an attempt to disrupt and undermine the legislative arm of government.
This, indisputably, was an attempted coup against constitutionalism, democracy and the rule of law.”
The socio-cultural leaders further demanded that a Judicial Commission of Inquiry be set up to examine the recent invasion of the National Assembly by security agents, and the outcome made public.
They also expressed serious concern that the 2018 Electoral Act was yet to be signed into law by President Buhari barely six months to the 2019 Elections while faulting the President’s pronouncement that “the rule of law must be subject to the supremacy of the nation’s security and national interests.”
The leaders maintained that national interest and the rule of law in a constitutional democracy are not and cannot be mutually exclusive.