…If President Buhari truly loves Nigeria, he should resign – Afenifere
In a swift reactions to yesterday’s comments by Lai Mohammed, NEF’s spokesman Baba Ahmed as reported by Daily Trust,said that their call for the President to resign was consistent with democratic principles.
” The president was elected to perform specific functions and undertake responsibilities. He has failed to do that and we are exercising our responsibilities as citizens to say to him, you have failed and the is no basis for you to continue.”
Baba Ahmed said “we derive no pleasure from pointing out the weaknesses of the President, we would rather praise him particularly as northerners.we would rather say someone we supported to become president has done well but unfortunately we are now having to ask him the same way we supported him to become president. We are now saying to him we are very sorry, we thought you would do a lot better but you are not doing anywhere near our expectations, it is time to go and we have no apology for that at all.”
Baba-Ahmed said contrary to the minister’s insinuation that the call for the resignation was aimed at truncating the president’s constitutional mandate in the office, he said the call by NEF has nothing to do with the President’s second term adding, ” Mr president has had five to six years to demonstrate that he has a handle on insecurity, on the economy and many of the problems that his country has.
“He has demonstrated that he has no clue on how to approach the issue of security and so we are not in the business to shorten his term, we are telling him that six years into his presidency, it is clear that he is not going to solve our security problems. There is no sign that he is going to do that. It is time to ask him to go, how they interpret it is their business.”
He reminded that in 2013 , Buhari has asked then president Goodluck Jonathan to resign over his failure to deal with insecurity. “That was two years before he became president,so there is nothing new in asking the president to resign; it is a legitimate democratic right the citizens have.”
In a similar response to Lai Mohammed, the pan Yoruba Socio-cultural group, Afenifere said that the position of Buhari as a president is problematic and backed by the call for his resignation.
Spokesman of the group, Mr Yinka Odumakin in a chat with Daily Trust said if president Buhari truly loves the country, he should resign.
“If he does not owe this country any responsibility as a president ,his position has become untenable,”he said.
Odumakin described the statement attributed to the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed dismissing the call for Buhari’s Resignation as irresponsible as lacking in integrity.
He said the minister should no longer be taken as a serious person.
“I think at this point, no serious Nigerian would take Alhaji Lai Mohammed seriously. He has turned himself to a joke. When he makes statements,he just has to say something to please his master.”
