The pan Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has told President Muhammadu Buhari that there is no sign that insecurity will end soon.
The group advised the president to use his remaining time in office to “reverse” Nigeria’s current ugly situation “foisted on the nation by his administration.”
It stated that Buhari had failed in his three core promises of security, ending corruption and improving the economy which he had used to campaign for power.
Reacting to the president’s Eid-el-Fitri message that the end to terrorism was near, Afenifere in a statement by its publicity secretary, Jare Ajayi, said the comment did not match the reality on the ground.
It called on him to match his words with actions in regard to various indices of governance, particularly security, saying killings and kidnapping of innocent people persisted.
“Unfortunately, the change we have seen in any of these areas is the reverse. In reverse in the sense that insecurity is now at an unprecedented level, corruption is at an all-time high while the economy is now so down that hardly are the majority of Nigerians able to eat twice in 24 hours,” Ajayi said.
Afenifere challenged the president to immediately allow states to establish their own police forces, honour agreements his government had with various labour unions, drastically reduce the cost of governance and ensure that the cost of social services and essential commodities like petrol and electricity came down considerably.
“President Buhari can start in this respect by ordering his party officers to liberalize the prohibitive cost of participation in the electoral process going by the amount of money aspirants are forced to pay just to express interest in vying for certain political offices.
“Since it is the government of President Muhammadu Buhari that took us into this asphyxiating condition, history may still be kind to him if he can use the remaining time he has in office to reverse the ugly situation. The permanent way to achieve this is to institute restructuring without any further ado,” Ajayi said.
Afenifere pointed out that rather than looking at the immediate future with hope, “Nigerians are living and moving around in fear and despondence because of the insecurity they face at home, at work and even more so when travelling on highways. How then can one be hopeful in that kind of situation?”
