Ibrahim Oyewale in Lokoja
Former acting Governor and Speaker of Kogi State House of Assembly, Mr. Clarence Olafemi, has expressed worries over the spate of insecurity bedeviling the country, calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to sack his service chiefs “due to their poor performance in the last five years.”
Olafemi, while chatting with journalists in Lokoja yesterday, described the current service chiefs as ‘expired products’, stressing that they should safe their faces by resigning from the President Buhari government voluntarily.
He posited that in a civilized society, the service chiefs would have no moral justification to remain in their positions, adding that there must be a parameter in measuring performance, and that it has become a national embarrassment that Boko Haram terrorists in the North-east region is running a parallel government in Nigeria.
The former Speaker said Nigeria has a problem of structural management, saying those who occupied juicy positions don’t want to leave even though they cannot perform.
According to him, “The government responsibilities must be paramount in security, and that security is becoming another thing. It is preventing so many activities in Nigeria. For example, people like me, who supposed to be 70 and want to retire and go into farming. But I’m afraid that I might be kidnapped in my farm, so I didn’t go into agriculture.”
The former acting governor also lamented that he could no longer travel to manage his business, noting that any time he travels from Lokoja to Mopamuro, he was always in fear thinking that kidnappers, armed robbers, bandits might be around.
On the duration Boko Haram terror group has terrorised Nigeria, he stressed that even when Nigeria was in a civil war, “how long did the civil war in Nigeria last.
“It is becoming embarrassing to us today that Nigeria has a boundary where Boko Haram is running a government in over one third of the local government areas of Borno State.
“For the service chiefs, I’m not only just calling for their sack, they should simply resign voluntarily. In a civilized country, what exactly are they doing there? What is the moral justification to remain in those positions?”
He urged those in power to wake up from their slumber in 2021, and address the problem of Nigeria squarely, adding that anyone who is tired of his job should be withdrawn and replaced by a more effective person.
