By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
President Muhammadu Buhari’s attitude to governance endangers all of us, says the spokesman of the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF), Hakeem Baba-Ahmed.
In an interview on Channels Television, Baba-Ahmed says that he was more depressed after listening to President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesman, Garba Shehu, who, like his principal, underestimate the existential threat Nigeria faces.
“People are glibly talking about ‘we don’t want to be part of Nigeria.’ These are new. We have always lived with this kind of threat. But this is new. If you don’t understand the escalation of irredentist rhetoric – ordinarily sensible people saying we don’t want to be part of this country, it is too insecure, nepotism is too much around the presidency, we don’t see any future for our young people, young people are angry! If people like Garba Shehu and his president don’t understand that this represents an existential threat, then we are even in more trouble,” he said.
He also said that the president has run out of steam on how to manage Nigeria’s challenges.
“Listening to Garba, to be honest, I just think that the president has run out of ideas.
“When they’re confronted with a very serious challenge, they go around looking for all sorts of diversions and excuses. Nigerians don’t want to hear any of this. We want a stop to the kidnappings,” he said.
He said kidnapping has become an industry. “This thing has grown into a big industry right under the nose of the president. There’s no way you can deflect attention from this. How do you explain the grown sophistication of the criminals in this country?
“We can’t have a president that is just sitting there and then blaming everybody else for the woes of the country, that is not what we elected him for,” he said.