These days, political pundits are all in agreement about the fact
of the matter that the swing regions for next year’s presidential polls are the
Middle Belt and the Southwest. As it stands today, the government of
President Muhammadu Buhari has not done any meaningful engagement with these
regions other than its overarching desire to establish “cattle colonies” in
both places to the detriment of the peace that exist there.
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| *El-Rufai and Buhari |
The people of the Southwest region simply want
a country that is fair to them in terms of the component contributions that
they make into the unitary polity, and the people of the Middle Belt region
simply want peace so they can continue to till the lands they have inherited
from their ancestors. Simple demands and expectations. Regrettably, instead of seeking avenues to ensure lasting peace in the Middle
Belt region, the “intellectual think-thank” of this Buhari administration
headed by a serving governor of a Northwest state is coming up with lots of
balderdash to ensure that elections would not hold in some key anti-Buhari
locales because of “security reasons.”
