President Buhari Is Overdue For Impeachment!

By Yemi Adebowale

A large number of senators, across party lines, showed a bit of courage last Wednesday by pushing for President Muhammadu Buhari’s impeachment in the face of the appalling security situation of beloved Nigeria. But the coldblooded President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan tactically stalled the motion to give the inept Buhari six weeks to improve the country’s security or face impeachment.

*Buhari 

It is appalling that Lawan did not allow the senators to discuss the raging insecurity in the country as agreed during an earlier Executive Session. He knocked it off the day’s Order Paper, preemptively, making it impossible to accommodate the debate on this vital issue at plenary. I was not shocked by Lawan’s action. This man has never been on the side of traumatised Nigerians. The senators eventually walked out of the red Chamber in protest, chanting “Buhari must Go,” “Lawan Must Go”.

Outside, Philip Aduda led his colleagues to the Senate Press Centre where they declared that Buhari would be shown the way out if he failed to tackle insecurity within the next six months: “We have come here in protest to let Nigerians know that we are with them, that we are worried. We staged a walkout from the chambers to register that the security in Nigeria is out of hand and urgent steps need to be taken so that the issues are addressed immediately.”

Nigeria, in all its years as an independent country, has never had it so bad with security. The Nigerian state has never been this weak; it can no longer protect its citizens. Leadership has collapsed. Buhari has simply messed up this country. He has been saddled with a job he has no capacity for. Our President repeatedly shows that he is incapable of functioning as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, resulting in the sorry state of Nigeria’s security agencies. The same man, while in opposition, led protests against insecurity during the Jonathan era. Then, he was elected President, and he simply handed over the entire country to insurgents. Terrorists are roaming freely, maiming and killing. Fulani militias, criminal herders and kidnappers continue to maul Nigerians. Boko Haram has also become emboldened, expanding territories with intense carnage. Nigeria is broken. Seven years of the Buhari Presidency have broken this country.

The heartbroken Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Kukah once remarked: “With everything literally broken down, our country has become one big emergency national hospital with full occupancy. Our individual hearts are broken. Our family dreams are broken. Homes are broken. Churches, Mosques, and infrastructure are broken. Our educational system is broken. Our children’s lives and future are broken. Our politics is broken. Our economy is broken. Our energy system is broken. Our security system is broken. Only corruption is alive and well.”

Our President, who promised that he would lead the war against terrorists from the front, has spent the last seven years sleeping. Suddenly, he said he was tired of the job and eager to return to his farm in Daura. Buhari repeatedly shamelessly said this. So, why is Lawan against sending him off with an impeachment?

The weakest link in this dwindling war against terrorists is the Commander-in-Chief himself. Buhari is responsible for these unending security glitches, no thanks to his ineptitude and clannishness. Once the Commander-in Chief is prostrate, every other thing will fail. Our gallant soldiers are poorly equipped, poorly motivated, with no stark instruction to take out the terrorists. In fact, they have been fighting with their second hands hooked to the back. Our president has apparently compromised. I stand to be corrected. A compromised leadership makes it difficult for security agencies to deal with terrorists. This is why those behind most of the gory terror attacks across Nigeria are hardly arrested. This is also why Buhari is opposed to the use of foreign military contractors.

Virtually, all heads of Nigeria’s military and para-military bodies are headed by Buhari’s kinsmen. These heads of security agencies are not punished for failings. This is another factor responsible for alarming security glitches. For example, seven days after terrorists ambushed troops of the Guards Battalion along Kubwa-Bwari Road in Abuja, killing three of them, nothing visible happened in terms of dealing with the killers. Last Thursday, the defence headquarters released a statement full of deceits that 30 of the terrorists had been killed. Thirty terrorists arrested with just three weapons? They could not provide a single corpse. A forward-looking Commander-in Chief would have given the army chief a deadline to apprehend the terrorists or lose his job. This did not happen.

With Buhari as Commander-in-Chief, weeks after the embarrassing Kuje prison attack, no news yet on apprehending any of the culprits. I doubt if security agents even went after them. An estimated 300 well-armed ISWAP fighters strolled into Abuja unhindered and straight to Kuje to free 64 of their members; yet, heads have not rolled. The scale and the audacity of the attack are startling.  How can this happen in a country with a government?

An advance presidential team to Daura, hometown of President Buhari, was attacked by terrorists in Dutsinma, Katsina State. Nobody is talking about arresting the assailants. These things are really depressing.

In this same Nigeria, with a Commander-in-Chief, terrorists attacked a Kaduna-bound train on March 28, killing eight passengers and abducting 68 others, yet, there were no consequences. The emboldened terrorists have been holding scores of abductees for over four months, while traumatising them. At a point, they openly flogged these hapless Nigerians. Those so far freed, paid about N100 million each.

The former Chairman of Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission, Chidi Odinkalu, was apt when he described President Buhari as an “uncaring” Commander-in-Chief.

He adds: “The tragedy of our current crisis is that President Buhari is neither present nor capable of providing leadership. Even worse, he does not care, in my respectful view. You cannot have, with all profound respect, personnel of the Presidential Guards Brigade being killed in Abuja and the President travelling to Liberia to deliver a lecture on security, are you serious? There is only one element in the job of the President that can never be delegated as long as the President is terrestrial, that is a Commander-in-Chief…when the Commander-in-Chief is as lazy and uncaring as the one that Nigeria has, the country is exactly where it deserves to be.”

I can also vividly recollect that former President Olusegun Obasanjo said expecting Buhari to do anything positive about unending killings is akin to beating a dead horse. So, Buhari must go immediately for this country to end insecurity. This President has nothing to offer Nigerians other than pain.

 *Adebowale is a commentator on public issues   (yemi.adebowale@thisdaylive.com)