Nigerians are fed up with insecurity — IPAC

Nigeria’s registered political parties, under the auspices of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), has said that Nigerians are fed up with the raging insecurity in virtually every part of the country.

The body said the federal government must match words with actions to salvage the situation.

The National Chairman of IPAC, Dr Leonard Nzenwa, made the call on Thursday in Abuja at a State of the Nation media briefing.

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He said though the state of the nation is bad, it is redeemable if the government and the citizenry would do the right things.

“There is a cloud of uncertainty across the country.

“If we are sincere to ourselves, can we wholeheartedly exclaim that we have a beautiful country, the one we used to know, now?

“Can we say heartily that we are giant of Africa, as euphemistically echoed in the past?

“We seem to have lost the Nigeria we used to know. Everything has gone to the dogs.

“Everybody seems to have taken their own path.

“Herdsmen are killing farmers, kidnappers are invading our homes, our schools are not safe for learning, bandits are terrorising every one of us and terrorists with all sort of names are raiding our villages. We no longer sleep with our eyes closed.

“The level of killings that have been perpetrated by criminal elements in this country in so short a period as this is much.

“Sadly, Nigeria is ranked the third most unsafe place to live on earth. We are enmeshed in buckets of wicked problems which has overwhelmed us all,” Nzenwa said.

While mourning and commiserating with Nigerians over the death of the immediate past Chief of Army Staff, Ibrahim Attahiru, and others, the IPAC boss urged President Buhari to rejig Nigeria’s security architecture to work for final decapitating of the terrorists and other criminal elements troubling the country, saying “now is time to flush out these criminals as Nigerians are fed up”.

He also condemned the incessant burning of INEC and Nigerian Police facilities in some parts of the country and demanded a stop to the arson against the country.

He urged security agents to identify and deal decisively with the criminal elements perpetrating the burning of national assets.

‘Not Onochie’

Nzenwa added that IPAC remains opposed to the appointment of Lauretta Onochie, an aide to Mr President as a National Commissioner in INEC as this would undermine the independence and neutrality of the Commission.

“With the key appointment of a card-carrying member of a political party in the country to INEC -a very bad and unhealthy precedent in the country, we call on the National Assembly to ensure that they yield to demands of Nigerians not clear her,” he said.

The IPAC boss also urged the government to reconsider its banning of Twitter in the country and reach a truce with the microblogging Social Media Company for the sake of Nigerians who use the medium for their legitimate businesses.

He said that this should be done with clear warning and agreement that it should not allow its handle to be used for hate speeches or incitement that is detrimental to the Nigerian State.

Nzenwa, however, commended President Muhammadu Buhari for directing to remit allocation directly to the local governments.