IG’s Disobedience: Buhari Has Admitted Leading Inept Govt, Say PDP, Omokri

• BBOG blames president for Dapchi kidnap
Iyobosa Uwugiaren in Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Tuesday derided President Muhammadu Buhari for saying he was unaware that the Inspector General of Police (IG), Ibrahim Idris, did not carry out his orders regarding the security situation in Benue State, hinting that the president by the statement had directly admitted running an incompetent, disorganised and uncoordinated administration.

On its part, the BringBackOurGirls group yesterday also accused the president of “incompetence and carelessness” over the seizure of 110 girls by Boko Haram from their hostel in the restive northeast.
The advocacy movement has been at the forefront of the campaign to free the 276 Chibok girls seized in a similar fashion in April 2014.

In a statement by the PDP spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the party said Buhari’s explanation on the IG was also an admission that he had handed over power to a cabal that neither sought votes nor elected by Nigerians.
The party said the president had irredeemably indicted himself, adding that such unpardonable slipshod attitude to governance was directly responsible for his government’s wrecking of the country’s once robust economy as well as other woes that have befallen the country’s in his almost three years in office.

The PDP urged the All Progressives Congress (APC) and supporters of the president to take their minds off the Aso Villa ahead of 2019 election now that their leader and sole candidate had practically admitted his incompetence to run an effective government as desired by Nigerians.

The party criticised the president for trying to pass the buck to the IG, a development which it said further exposed his lack of direct commitment and concern toward the wellbeing and security of Nigerians.
According to the major opposition party, “Nigerians have completely lost hope in President Buhari and his incompetent administration. By stating that he was unaware that the IG only spent 24 hours in Benue State, the president has confirmed that he has not been effectively monitoring the handling of the security situation of our country.

“This places a huge question mark on the regular assurances issued from the presidency on security. For our party, PDP, the expression of President Buhari has once again vindicated our position that our country has been placed on autopilot cruise with a cabal pretending to be managing our affairs.

“Indeed, Nigerians need to know; what exactly did President Buhari, as the Commander-in-Chief, do when he realised that the IG did not carry out his orders? We demand a direct answer from the presidency.’’
PDP added that there was no sense of remorse by the government as the president himself spent only two hours in Benue State without visiting the victims or even making any direct policy statement on those behind the killings and how to forestall future bloodletting.

The party continued: “Rather, in the character of this government, the President engaged in yet another blame game instead of facing issues.
“If the presidency is not committed to monitoring critical issues such as security, then Nigerians are no longer in doubt as to why other sectors, particularly our once robust economy, had gone comatose under the Buhari administration.

“Moreover, Nigerians are miffed that while the wailings over these daily bloodletting are yet to abate, President Buhari is busy announcing his plans to  return to Benue State to seek another round of votes. This shows clinically that the president is truly not aware that Nigerians have since abandoned him in his state of unawareness.’’
On its part, the BringBackOurGirls group accused Buhari of “incompetence and carelessness” over the seizure of 110 girls by Boko Haram from their hostel in the restive Northeast, giving the government a seven-day deadline to free the remaining 112 Chibok girls and the 110 seized in Dapchi last month, or face a lawsuit on the grounds of criminal negligence.

“How terribly embarrassing it is that within four years since the abduction of 276 Chibok girls in April 2014, our country is again in the news for tragic reasons.
“The abduction of 110 girls of Government Girls Science and Technical Secondary School, Dapchi in Yobe State on February 19, 2018 is the worst form of a deja vu that our movement could have ever imagined at this time in our nearly four-year-old advocacy,” the group said in statement.

The advocacy group said it was “infuriated by the blunders that led to this latest abduction, blaming the kidnap on the “incompetence and carelessness of our government,” and urged the authorities to do everything possible to free the girls.
Also, activist and former Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Social Media, Reno Omokri, has called President Buhari a weakling for expressing ignorance over the failure of Idris to obey his directive to relocate to Benue to stop further killings after about 95 indigenes from the state were killed by suspected herdsmen.

Quoting what the president was reported to have said: “I never knew the IG moved to Nasarawa after I sent him to Benue,” Omokri said: “These were the words of President Buhari, a man sold to Nigeria as a strongman leader.”
Omokri quoted the statement of the president again where he was reported to have said: “I did not know that the IG did not stay in the state. I am getting to know this at this meeting. I am quite surprised,” the activist noted that this has vindicated the president’s wife, Aisha Buhari, who in 2016 revealed that the president had lost control of his government.

“What type of Commander-in-Chief gives an order and does not have processes in place to verify that such orders have been carried out? A weak leader that is who? President Buhari and his APC sold a lie that former President Jonathan was weak, however, if an IG had disobeyed President Jonathan’s orders two things would have happened; Jonathan would have known because he had a practice of verifying that his orders had been obeyed, and ex-President Jonathan would have sacked such an IG before you could say Jack Robinson.” Omokri said.

He said a case in point was that of former IG, Suleiman Abba and recalled that Abba was established to have committed an infraction on April 21, 2015 and he was fired by President Jonathan on the same day.

“But President Buhari’s weakness and inaction, as typified in the willful disobedience of his order by Idris, is part of a pattern of behaviour that shows that the president is in office but not in power. During the Jonathan administration, some ministers and other officials were accused of either corruption or conflict of interest and they were summarily fired’ one on the same day and the other after a two-week investigation.

“But contrast that with President Buhari who left his Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, in his job even after glaring evidence that the man was sincere. Till today, Nigerians do not know which official in the Buhari administration brought back Abdulrasheed Maina, reinstated him into the civil service and gave him double promotion,” Omokri also said.

He added that so “indisciplined is the Buhari government that his Head of the Civil Service and his Chief of Staff were caught on video quarreling over the Maina affair in full view of reporters and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. Such is the hallmark of an administration with a weak and gutless leader,” noting that a former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, showed more spine in office than President Buhari.

“It will be recalled that when then Anambra State Governor, Chris Ngige, was ‘impeached’ then abducted and locked in a toilet, he testified that a phone was smuggled into his toilet detention center with which he called then Vice President Atiku Abubakar, because then President Obasanjo had travelled out of the country, and that Atiku Abubakar subsequently called the then IG, Tafa Balogun, and ordered him to reinstate Ngige.

If a sitting vice president can order an IG and ensure that his order was carried out, Nigeria has no use for a President who cannot do the same. A president that cannot supervise his appointees, is that one a president? A president whose orders are disobeyed, is he a leader? President who does not know what is happening in his government, is that one in power?” Omokri said.