The Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to practise what he said about justice, fairness and equity on the floor of the United Nations (UN) when he addressed the world body last Friday.
Buhari, while calling for the reform of the UN, said: “Without justice, the legitimacy (even efficacy) of our organisation is called to question.”
He also called for dialogue between Israel and Palestine to resolve their differences, adding that the skirmish between the duo borders on “the question of justice, fairness and equity”.
Elsewhere in his speech, Afenifere said the President also talked about the commitment of his administration to the respect of human rights.
Picking holes in the President’s speech, Afenifere, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi, said that ethnic nationalities and other concerned stakeholders in Nigeria have been calling for dialogue to resolve ‘Nigeria issues’ for long but the Buhari administration has not only been ignoring them but hounding those calling for such dialogue.
“It is interesting, perhaps comforting that the Nigerian authority realises that dialogue is the way to go in resolving knotty issues. It is however hypocrisy of the highest order for this same authority to be prescribing this to foreign authorities while describing those calling for the same thing at home as ‘hate speech makers’ and separatists,” it posited.
Afenifere added the reform that Buhari advocated for the United Nations is the same thing those calling for dialogue at home are calling for.
“Why and how our President considered reform and dialogue as necessary at the global level but consider same as anathema in Nigeria beats one’s imagination. It is called reform at the global level and restructuring at home,” it said.
On internal security, Afenifere spokesman asserted that the reality on ground belies the president’s claim.
He said the President, in his speech, had given the impression that terrorists have more or less surrendered to the Army.
“We, as Afenifere, commend the heroic efforts of the Nigerian Army but it is a fact that activities of terrorists appear to be more expanding rather than receding going by the submission of the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, that over 330,000 Nigerian refugees are languishing in neighbouring countries due to insurgency and armed banditry in the North East and North West as well as Kaduna State Governor El Rufai that advocated for the military to be decentralised.
“The level of insecurity in the country has gotten so bad that the authority of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) advised youth corpers to always let their people prepare ransom to be paid in case they are kidnapped in the course of traveling from one point to another while in service,” the organisation pointed out.