A former Minister of Education, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, on Tuesday accused President Muhammadu Buhari of ambivalence over the killings across the country and breaching his oath of office by his loyalty to service chief who have been unable to keep Nigeria safe.
Mrs. Ezekwesili stated this when she embarked on a lone protest to the Presidential Villa, Abuja over the killing of over 100 people in Barkin-Ladi and Riyom in Plateau State by suspected Fulani herdsmen.
Supported by a few members of the #BringBackOurGirls coalition, the former minister walked from the Eagle Square to the first gate of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, where she was stopped by armed security operatives.
Over 20 policemen, 16 soldiers and a handful of Department of State Services’ operatives in three vehicles blocked the access road to Aso Villa and prevented her from taking her message to President Buhari.
However, following the intervention of a senior DSS operative, Ezekwesili was able to read her address at the Villa gate, with visitors driving into the complex watching.
The operatives also permitted her, with great reluctance, to tie her banner to the gate.
The activist cautioned the security personnel against removing the banner, saying she wanted the President to read the inscriptions, which read, “#End the killings; #End the blood flow; Help, Where are the killers?”
The BBOG co-coordinator in her 18-point demand, lamented the ambivalence of the President to the killings, noting that he had failed to show empathy for the victims of the bloodshed.
Ezekwesili urged Mr. Buahri to address the killings across the country and to “stop normalising endless blood flow of our innocent children now; it is an aberration.”
She said, “Mr President, share the credible strategy and solutions of your administration to the daily killings of Nigerians; reveal the identities of all the perpetrators of all the killings that have happened under your administration in Plateau, Benue, Taraba, Kaduna, Zamfara, Adamawa, Nasarawa, Kogi and other states.”
She also asked the president to put to and end “the incompetence of the security agencies and to stop rewarding their leadership,” noting that about 1,196 Nigerians had died in the past five and a half months.
“End your loyalty to your service chiefs and head of security because of their loyalty to your person. It is a breach of the oath you swore to place Nigeria above your personal interest; it is simply an abuse of office,” she demanded.
Ezekwesili further warned the president to desist from making statements endorsing the killers’ justification of their crime as a retaliatory act for stolen cows.
“Mr President, your bias in handling the killings and abductions of a certain segment of Nigerians is all too obvious and unbecoming of a leader of a diverse nation like Nigeria; all Nigerian lives matter,” she concluded.
Meanwhile, President Buhari was in Jos on Tuesday to condole with the people of Plateau over the recent killings across the state which claimed over 86 lives. It was the first time, Buhari as commander-in-chief acted as consoler-in-chief since the killings intensified under his watch.
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