A former chairman of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Prof Chidi Odinkalu has blamed the President Muhammadu Buhari administration for being allegedly responsible for Nigeria’s greatest division ever.
He said this in an interview with The Sun published on Friday.
Odinkalu while reflecting on the state of the nation under Buhari said, “The country is deeply divided as it is now and I think the reasons are due partly to the actions and inactions of President Buhari. I am not the oldest Nigerian alive but in my limited lifetime I have never seen Nigeria this deeply divided and I think many of the issues have to do with this incumbent President.”
He accused the president of waging a partisan war on corruption, adding that the people have not been carried along.
Speaking on the president’s track record since coming to power in 2015, Odinkalu said, “There were certain promises that Buhari made to Nigerians when he was campaigning that made him appear credible. One of them is that he is going to fight corruption. The fight against corruption by the Buhari government has been very partisan, and has failed to carry people along. There are whole lot of graft around him that he hasn’t addressed, so he is leading a party with most of its leadership coming from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
“Many people who were in PDP before 2015, and had cases of corruption pending against them crossed over to the president’s party after 2015 and I think that is not a credible or serious way to fight corruption. The second thing Buhari promised was that he is going to fight insecurity, but in doing that he ended up appointing all the leading public officers in the security sector from one section of the country. The problem with that is there are security challenges in all parts of the country, so once you have all your security personnel from one part of the country, you will lack the wherewithal of exercising balanced judgement in deciding how to address the security challenges and that is exactly what is happening now. That is why you see a situation where to address the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) problem, you use a sledge hammer and then you brush over the farmers / herdsmen’s crisis. That is the problem that arises from having all the composition of the security chiefs from one section of the country, you have the Minister of Defence for instance trying to justify why people were killed. Insecurity is on the rise, everyday you wake up, you hear of people killed in different places and the president says nothing.
“I don’t know if you noticed that on the day that Winnie Mandela died, 15 people were killed in Maiduguri and the president said nothing, he did not acknowledge their death. I think the previous day; about 30 people had been killed in Benue. The day after that many people were killed in the Offa, Kwara State bank robbery and President Buhari said absolutely nothing. But when Winnie Mandela died, he sent out a very powerful message. I think Nigeria should acknowledge the death of Winnie Mandela, she was a special woman, but so also are the many Nigerians that died. So far the president behaves as if Nigerians don’t matter, as if we don’t exist, as if he doesn’t need us and that he is doing us a favour. So on security there is nothing.
“The third promise Buhari made was to transform agriculture. But agriculture is in a mess. So in my view, the three things that Buhari promised us, fighting corruption, addressing insecurity and transforming agriculture we have not made any progress in those areas. Another thing is that the president is manifestly unwell and for a man who always talks about integrity, he has dealt with his ill health with total lack of integrity.
“Right now the president is out of the country, they say he is going for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting which begins in about nine days time and that he will meet with the British Prime Minister, Theresa May and also meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury to hold discussions. You see all they have to tell us is that the president needs to consult with his doctors in the United Kingdom. That is not a terrible thing to say, it does not destroy anything. But they don’t have the confidence to say it and so they keep manufacturing inaccuracy. The president will sit down somewhere and the Archbishop will come and see him and they will say they have met.”