Former President Goodluck Jonathan has criticised his successor, President Muhammadu Buhari, for planning to extend the military show of force to the South-South and the South-West.
Jonathan said this in a Facebook post on Tuesday which was signed on his behalf by his aide, Reno Omokri.
The former President was emboldened by the statement by Senate President Bukola Saraki who had said the military had no right to declare the Indigenous People of Biafra as a terror group.

He said, “However, we want to advise the Buhari administration, which has announced plans to extend the military show of force to the South-South and the South-West through Operation Crocodile Smile, to tread with caution.
“Nigeria is no longer under military rule. In a democracy, you separate the military from the police. The military is not meant to fight criminality within a nation because they are trained to fight a nation’s external enemies.
“It is the police that are trained to fight crime internally. When the military starts doing the job of the police and starts fighting or doing what they call a ‘show of force’, the effect will not be to reduce crime. The effect will be to intimidate people.”
Jonathan also lambasted the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, for saying the activities of IPOB started because he lost the 2015 election.
Mohammed had said looters and disgruntled elements in the opposition were the chief sponsors of IPOB.
The former President said, “The insinuations in the press conference given by Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Sunday, accusing the opposition of sponsoring the IPOB and the fact that he mentioned that Nnamdi Kanu preached Nigerian unity during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan is another clear indication that the present administration has not left propaganda mode for proper agenda mode two and a half year into their tenure.
“If the government, in which Lai Mohammed serves, knows which opposition members are sponsoring IPOB, then they should identify them, arrest them and then prosecute them.”
Jonathan wondered if Saraki, who is a member of the All Progressives Congress, could be said to be a sponsor of IPOB since he had come out to say the proscription of the group was illegal.
While commending the South-East governors for their efforts in restoring peace, Jonathan said Mohammed had no moral right to cast aspersions as the minister had once criticised him for declaring Boko Haram a terrorist group.
He added, “It is our suspicion that Lai Mohammed is talking from history seeing as he criticized the Jonathan government for banning Boko Haram in a statement he released on June 10, 2013, even though the Jonathan government had gone through due process before proscribing that murderous sect. Perhaps Lai Mohammed thinks everybody is like him and those he represents.”
He asked the minister to concentrate more on serving the nation than on propaganda.
Meanwhile, the Presidency has faulted the statement credited to Senate President Bukola Saraki, that the Nigerian Army has no powers to declare the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) a terrorist organisation.
The Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Prosecution, Okoi Obono-Obla, said on Tuesday in a statement on his Facebook page that the decision of the Nigerian Army was in order.
The Presidential aide queried Saraki’s legal right to declare as illegal, any action taken by the executive or any of its agencies.
Obono-Obla, who drew a distinction between proscription and declaration, said the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) would soon apply for IPOB’s proscription in court.
According to him, “The military, as part of the executive branch of government, has the right to declare that IPOB is a terrorist organization for the purpose of quelling the threat posed to national security and corporate existence of the country by the unwholesome and nefarious activities of the organization.
“So, there is nothing absolutely wrong or unconstitutional for the military, for operational reason, to declare IPOB a terrorist organization.
“Declaration of IPOB as a terrorist organization does not amount to proscription of IPOB. Proscription of IPOB will surely be in accordance with the procedure and processes underlined in the provisions of Section 2 (1) of the Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011.
“It provides thus: ‘Where two or more persons associate for the purpose of or where an organization engages in, participating or collaborating in an act of terrorism, promoting, encouraging or exhorting others to commit an act of terrorism, setting or pursuing acts of terrorism, the judge in chambers may, on application made by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), the National Security Adviser (NSA) or Inspector- General of Police (IGP), on the approval of the President, declare any entity to be a proscribed organization and the notice should be published in official gazette.
“The military never proscribed IPOB, but only declared it a terrorist organization, because of the way and manner it has been carrying out its activities.
“These include pelting stones and cocktail Molotov bombs on convoys of military vehicles, burning of police stations, killing of police officers, attacking and threatening Nigerians living in Abia State, who do not subscribe to its separatist and militants ideology, creating the Biafra Security Service and Biafra National Guard, threatening to stop the conduct of the forthcoming Anambra governorship election and threatening to make the country ungovernable as well as illegal importation of lethal weaponry into the country.
“By the Constitution, it is the executive branch of government that is empowered to implement the law not the legislature or the Judiciary branches of government, So, where the executive branch in the process of enforcing the law commits an error or act wrongfully or unconstitutionally, it is only the judiciary branch of government that is vested with the power to declare such an action unconstitutional.
“It is not the legislature which has the power to interpret the law. The legislature is only vested with the power of law making and occasionally carrying out oversight of the actions of the executive branch of government in its process of law making to expose corruption or mal-administration and inefficiency.
“It follows that it is unconstitutional for the legislature to declare what ever the executive branch of government has done in exercise of its constitutional powers .
“At the appropriate time the AGF will make the necessary application to the Federal High Court . At this trying one, we expect all the organs and institutions of government to work together , partner , cooperate and collaborate with each other to tackle this menace personified by IPOB instead of playing politics”, !Okoi Obono-Obla said.
