Step aside if you can’t stop insecurity, SDP tells Buhari

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to take urgent steps to arrest what it called the ravaging insecurity in the country.

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Alfa Mohammed, in a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday said Buhari should consider stepping aside if he couldn’t take the steps for the alleged failure of his government to make the country safe for the citizenry since he was elected for the task over three years ago.

The party said it was high time the president find lasting solution to the incessant killings.

While condemning the killings and destruction of properties, especially in Kaduna and Plateau states, the statement pointed out that leaving the lives of innocent Nigerians at the mercy of frustrated, wicked and heartless men for years amounted either to total disregard for the sanctity of the lives of the citizens or lack of capacity to find lasting solutions to the evil.

The SDP also enjoined the Nigerian security organisations to always apply rule of engagement in their attempts to control the conducts of civil protesters.

“We feel that the number of casualties recorded during the security agents’ encounter with Shiite religious sect’s protests in two Abuja suburbs, Zuba and Mararaba, could have been avoided if rules of engagement with civilians were observed adequately.

“Although we commend the efforts of the Nigerian Army and other security agencies at securing lives and property, we demand that innocent lives be protected at all cost and at all times. In the same vein, the Shiites and of course every civil society willing to engage in peaceful protest should always do so within the ambits of law,” the statement further read.