Members of the People’s Democratic Party Caucus in the House of Representatives, Wednesday have disclosed what they think is the real reason President Muhammadu Buhari withheld his assent to the amended electoral bill. They said it was to avoid electronic transmission of election results.
Decrying the insecurity in the country, thwt said Nigeria had been seized by hostage-takers-bandits and terrorists who now feed on the poor and impoverished citizens from the ransom they demanded.
In a statement signed by the leader of the Caucus, Rep. Kingsley Chinda (PDP Rivers State) in Abuja, the main opposition lawmakers requested that the President resign from his office.
Chinda said: “In the past one month Nigerians have waited on the President to give assent to the Electoral Reform Bill passed to him by the National Assembly.
“As was postulated in several quarters, he has declined assent to same, using the cost of direct primaries as a decoy. The untold reason of declining, is to avoid the electronic transmission of results which will improve the credibility of the electoral system.
“This refusal, though contemplated, has left Nigerians confounded by a President who continues to show utter disdain for the Constitution and the reform of the institutions of state. Under him, our institutions of state have regressed, to the point that the gains of previous institutions reforms, embarked by Our Great Party while in power, have been either lost to his inaction or to his deliberate ploy to leave our country worse than he met it. On this point alone, we are not convinced that he is interested in the reform of the Electoral process.”
“A ruling party that cannot conduct its national convention lacks the capacity to implement some of the innovative and people-empowering provisions of the Bill, like the direct party primaries and electronic transmission of results from the units. As an opposition caucus, we will ensure that our members exercise their power under Section 58(5) of the Constitution to veto the President whenever the National Assembly deems it fit to table the issue for discussion”
“We make bold to remind General Buhari of the saying, of that old Greek General, Chabrias the Athenian, that “an army of sheep led by a lion is more feared than an army of lions led by a sheep.
“But, our nation and its people don’t have the luxury of time to wait on General Buhari to transform from the intrepid General who is currently missing in action to the lion that leads from the front, when bandits, terrorists and kidnappers who have seized our nation by the scruff of the neck are inflicting malevolence on the nation and imposing informal rules on citizens to command obedience to their dictates”.
“Time is running out. General Buhari should save our country by waking up from his long slumber or resign now”.
The caucus further said homesteads, hamlets, villages, towns and cities have turned into killing fields for bandits, a situation which had become unbearable.
Chinda said: “Everywhere we turn, today, our dead are either being prepared for burials by families whose hearts are torn up by grief, or they are being mourned by families who can’t tell where the corpses of their loved ones are or where the killer squads will turn up next.
“Here is the stark truth of the Nigerian condition under Buhari’s ruinous rule: citizens are in a prolong, severe and intense state of mourning that has kept them stuck in acute anguish, pain and trauma.
“In his recent remark at the sidelines of the COP-26 Conference in Scotland, United Kingdom, General Buhari boasted.
“We will defeat them, one highway, one rail link- and one job- at a time”. It is over three weeks since the Conference ended, no stone of resistance has been mobilized by the General against bandits, terrorists and kidnappers.”
“The communities of Sabon Birni of Sokoto State, Kagara of Niger State, Karim Lamido of Taraba State, Katoge and Yanturaku of Katsina State, and of the north east, north west, south south and south east are witnesses to the reigns of terror”, Chinda said.
The caucus was disappointed that the President who had boasted of leading from the front was now missing in action.
“General Buhari is concerned only about his personal and family safety, and the safety of his lackeys.
“Typical of rulers in history who suffered from messianic complex, he thinks his personal survival is tantamount to the survival of the nation”
“It is this delusion that makes the governance of our country dire and costly under his rulership. There’s something more ruinous about his delusion: he promotes himself beyond his talent of statecraft.
“Like Caligula, the delusional Roman emperor in history, who ordered that ships be lined up in a double anchor to form a bridge, so he could ride his horses across the gulf of Baiae to prove the prophesy of Thrasyllus the astrologer wrong that he had no chance of emerging as an emperor “than riding over the gulf of Baiae with horses”, General Buhari is deploying scarce state resources against peaceful protesters who are calling attention to the killings in the North to prove that he is an emperor”.
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