President Muhammadu Buhari must step up his leadership of Nigeria, by coming up with fresh solutions to the unprecedented challenges facing the country.
A spokesman to the Northern Elders Forum, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed made the submission on Friday on a Channels TV programme, Sunrise Daily.
“This is a country that is facing unprecedented levels of insecurity from all angles and we don’t see any sign that they are doing anything different from what they have done in the last 3, 4, or 5 years”, Baba Ahmed said.
“You cannot keep doing the same thing and expect to get different results,” he added.
He urged Buhari to do more to secure the lives and property of citizens, other than continue blaming everyone else for the woes befalling Nigeria.
He said it is clear that the government is not doing enough and that is why the results have been felt negatively across the nation.
Baba-Ahmed said it is tiring to hear the presidency continue to ascribe the complaints of Nigerians to the machinations of the opposition.
“We can’t have a president that is just sitting there and then blaming everybody else for the woes of the country, that is not what we elected him for.”
“If every time Nigerians complain about being marginalized, we (presidency) don’t want to hear this and you dismiss it as this is just the opposition, then these problems will grow. Because even if it is the opposition, it is your job to deal with the opposition.
“Ascribing problems to the opposition doesn’t solve them; because it is the job of the opposition to make you look bad, it’s your job to make the opposition less effective in making you look bad.
“If the only response of the presidency is that every criticism, every complaint, every grievance that the people say the government is not working, we don’t see the result of work, and you say that is just talk, then clearly you are not dealing with the problem.”
He said it does not appear that the Buhari administration recognizes the magnitude of the problem faced by the country.
He said even if in all fairness it does understand the enormity, then its response has been unsatisfactory and inadequate
