Segun James
A former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Bode George, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to provide leadership and unite Nigerians.
He noted that the clashes between herdsmen and farmers, especially across South-west, can only be stopped with the ban on open grazing.
Speaking at a press briefing titled: ‘We Must Withdraw From The Brick’, George expressed worry that governments at all levels are fast losing grip on protecting lives and property, adding that this is not the time for ethnic or sectarian jingoism.
He said: “This is the time that President Buhari should demonstrate a rallying unifying leadership to bring all our people together. Surely, this is not the time for ethnic or sectarian jingoism.
“This is the time for healing. This is the time to mend the broken places and rectify the pervasive wrongs. Our people have been living together in peace and harmony for more than 100 years even before the colonialists imposed the rule of gunpowder.
“The widening spread of banditry, the reckless shedding of innocent blood, the bitter murderous clashes between farmers and herdsmen, the loose brigandage, have virtually made all corners of our society insecure, vulnerable to the rule of the cudgel and machete.
“Governance everywhere is fast losing its grip on the first principles of protecting lives and properties. From Sokoto to Lagos, from Ebonyi to Borno, from Katsina to Ogun and from the Savanah to the rain forest, lives are daily cut down without the culprits being brought to pay for their crimes. “Road users are kidnapped, brutalised, exposed to un-imaginable kinds of cruelty and then forced to pay ransom.
“We must restructure the Nigerian entity to ensure its survival as a nation. There are so many aberrations thwarting equitable governance in our country.
“The centre is too encumbered with many responsibilities. It is overburdened, stressed with unnecessary functions that ought to be devolved to the states.
“Our federation is only a federation in name, it is more of a unitary system, barking out Command and Control like a military hierarchy.”
