By Adesina Soyooye

Presidential Spokesman, Femi Adesina, has taken on the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, for calling on  President Muhammadu Buhari to resign over the unprecedented insecurity in Nigeria.

In the past few months, the security situation in the country has worsened, culminating in the brazen fatal attack on March 28, 2022,  of an Abuja-Kaduna bound Train. The rail track was rigged with bombs which exploded and immobilized the train.

Immediately after, tens of terrorists swamped on the passengers, killed eight of them, and kidnapped over a hundred of them who are still in their custody.

A couple of days ago, the NEF, after a meeting, lamented the situation and asked President Buhari to resign from office since he is incapable of securing Nigeria.

Insisting that Buhari had no clue as to how to deal with the situation, NEF said, in part: “We cannot continue to live and die under the dictates of killers, kidnappers, rapists and sundry criminal groups that have deprived us of our rights to live in peace and security.”

The Group’s advice and solution: The resignation of Buhari from office.

It submitted: “Our constitution has provisions for leaders to voluntarily step down if they are challenged by personal reasons or they prove incapable of leading.”

Even though the Presidency had, officially, reacted to NEF’s position through Shehu Garba, President Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and  Publicity, saying resignation was not the solution, Adesina, the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, has gone further than that, and told Nigerians why members of NEF want Buhari to resign.

In an article titled “Hiding Under The Umbrella of Insecurity”,  Adesina said their request was not borne out of patriotism but out of anger  because Buhari did not give them room to lead him by the nose. He said they thought they would control Buhari, but having tried and failed, they became angry.

He dismissed them as a bunch of self-seeking, bitter individuals, and reminded Nigerians that he had once described them as “Generals without troops.”

Adesina: “In fact, key personalities in the group made strenuous efforts to be part of the administration. When they didn’t succeed, they became adversaries.”

He noted that they “had always opposed the Buhari administration since its gambit failed, and before the 2019 presidential election, it openly endorsed Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as next President. And that completely vitiates whatever position the Forum adopts today. It is partisan, bilious, by no means neutral. It is from a self-serving standpoint.”

Adesina: “The point of interest today is the hackneyed calls on President Buhari to resign over the country’s security challenges, the latest coming from a so-called Northern Elders Forum (NEF), a group I’d once described as “Generals without troops.”

“The Forum is largely made of angry, bitter, self-seeking individuals, who had thought they would be leading President Buhari by the nose when he emerged in 2015. In fact, key personalities in the group made strenuous efforts to be part of the administration. When they didn’t succeed, they became adversaries.

“It is on record that NEF had always opposed the Buhari administration since its gambit failed, and before the 2019 presidential election, it openly endorsed Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as next President. And that completely vitiates whatever position the Forum adopts today. It is partisan, bilious, by no means neutral. It is from a self-serving standpoint.”

Explaining that insecurity is world wide, he used America as an example, saying that inspite of the number of attacks and killing in America, nobody has asked President Biden to resign from office.

Adesina: “Between 2009 and 2022, there were at least 271 mass shootings in United States of America, resulting in 1,518 people killed, and 980 wounded. Just this week, there has been the Brooklyn Subway Shooting in which at least 23 people were critically injured. In all these, did you hear calls for the resignation of any American President? It is on record that last year was the deadliest in a decade, in terms of mass shootings. Have you heard of calls for the resignation of President Joe Biden by a caterwauling band? No.”

However, not a few people say it is the law of karma at work. They say President Buhari and his Government are being paid back in their own coins. “What you sow, you reap”, is the chorus.

They point out that compared to the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, the insecurity then was a child’s play. But they noted that the leaders of the then opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, including Buhari, on several occasions, asked Jonathan to resign. Eventually, they point out, it was the propaganda they used to remove Jonathan from office. “Why complain now?”, they ask.