The Convener of Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) and former Minister of Education, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, on Saturday, said President Muhammadu Buhari didn’t deserve to be president, due to his lackadaisical attitude to the plight of the 2000 Nigeria Immigration Service recruits, who slept at the entrance of Aso Villa in Abuja from Friday till Saturday morning.
But the Presidency in its reaction challenged the former minister to run for presidency and take over from President Buhari.
We recall that NIS recruits were trained on weapons handling and dispersed on August 20, 2015 from their various camps, following a circular, which emanated from the NIS headquarters in Abuja, directing them to go on two weeks break. Since then, they have not been recalled to their respective camps.
Ezekwesili, while appealing to the protesters to maintain decorum, also challenged President Buhari to come out and publicly address the alleged illegal recruitment which has permeated his administration in the last couple of months, saying “that was not the change Nigerians voted for.”
According to her, “you are great Nigerians. So, you slept here, Oh my God! Inside this cold of Abuja. Somebody holds you a better explanation, and if President Muhammadu Buhari says he doesn’t know that you slept here since yesterday, it means he doesn’t deserve to be there.
“This government should not punish those who did not deserve to be punished. Nothing should be done secretly. This is not the change Nigerians voted for. President Buhari should come out and address the allegation of illegal recruitment going on in the civil service,” she added.
The protesting recruits displaying different placards.
She further alleged that the Federal Government was employing those who did not have knowledge, skills and required literacy through the backdoor into civil service without minding the consequence, while promising to join the recruits until their demands were acceded to by President Buhari.
Ezekwesili stated that the impunity Nigerians fought during the immediate past administration has resurfaced in the present administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
She frowned on the situation in which the underprivileged were being subjected to hardship before they could be employed into the civil service, pointing out that only the children of members of the National Assembly, Federal Executive Council and bigwigs in the country were gainfully employed, even without merit.
Also speaking, another convener, Mrs Aisha Yesufu said the immediate past administration deserved to be commended for redeeming its image by employing the recruits, wondering why President Buhari, who promised ‘change’ had subjected the youth who had undergone rigorous trainings, especially in weapons handling, to such humiliation.
Some of the other protesters, Godwin Ladi Mercy, Adeleye Adejoke, Salomi Yohanna and Usman Ugbede Yusuf, condemned government action, saying the Federal Government should not refer to the 2,000 youths as applicants, because they have been given provisional offer of appointments, NIS uniforms, identification cards and posted to various commands nationwide.
As of the time of filing this report, the protesters, who slept at the entrance of the Villa till Saturday, have vowed to remain there, until the president or any of his aides comes out to address them.
The publicity, Garba Shehu, advised Ezekwesili to form a political party to run for presidency if she felt Buhari was not doing well.
He told Sunday Tribune in Abuja that if she did so and won the election, Buhari would hand over to her.
Asked to react to Ezekwesili’s claims, Shehu said: “Did I hear you say that Madam Ezekwesili said President Muhammadu Buhari is not fit to be in that office?
“That is a political statement. What I will advise her to do is to come out of the shadow of the grieving Chibok parents, register a political party and go into the election against the APC and President Muhammadu Buhari.
“If she thinks she is a better person to be in that office, let her present herself to the Nigerian people in an election. She has the right to do so under our constitution.”
“The issue of democracy is that there is a right to vote and be voted for. If anybody thinks that they can do a better job than President Muhammadu Buhari as president of Nigeria, let them go and run for the office to win election and take over.” – Tribune.
@Garba Shehu ti Ezekwesili… that response to Ezekwesili is most uncalled for. Ezekwesili is known for championing the cause of the downtrodden as in BBOGs campaign which APC enjoyed while it lasted. The issue at stake now is not that the woman wants to be president as you derided her, but she’s asking your principal to respond to such a national issue of great importance to all. Please let’s be serious and do the needful. What happened to these young, fellow Nigerians?
It is a stupidly arrogant response, which brags to Mrs Ezekwesili that president Buhari intends to run for re-election at 76 years of age. So far, Nigerians have regretted electing him president last year, so any expectation from Shehu and APC that Nigerians will reelect a 76-year old wearisome president is nothing but delusions of grandeur. The declaration that she should form a political party before running for president implies that Buhari is a shoe-in for APC and that other existing parties stand no chance of winning the presidency. Again, that’s delusional arrogance at its most shamefulness.
Yibos and their parochial views, who told you Buhari is not doing well?, we already knew that people from your place have an ethernal hates for the president. Weather the president is 90yrs or more, if he decides to contest so be it, don’t go chest beating, you people never voted for PMB in the past, by 2019 he might not be needing votes from the east.Dr. Ezekwesili is now behaving to type, all your set of people do is to encouraging blackmails and the destruction of the economic well being of this country, all because your people wants to see the president fail. Those who went to pass the night at the Aso Rock villa gate, is that the right place to channel their griviances? It wouldn’t come as a surprise that they are being instigated by ezekwesili and her bands of charlatans.
So in all the years that Ezekwesili and I supported Buhari, we did so because we were not “Yibos”? If we supported him because we were Nigerians, how could our criticisms of his shortcomings, not that we no longer support him, be because we are “Yibos”? Do you see how senseless and irrational your argument sounds?
Yibos and their parochial views, who told you Buhari is not doing well?, we already knew that people from your place have an ethernal hates for the president. Weather the president is 90yrs or more, if he decides to contest so be it, don’t go chest beating, you people never voted for PMB in the past, by 2019 he might not be needing votes from the east.Dr. Ezekwesili is now behaving to type, all your set of people do is to encouraging blackmails and the destruction of the economic well being of this country, all because your people wants to see the president fail. Those who went to pass the night at the Aso Rock villa gate, is that the right place to channel their griviances? It wouldn’t come as a surprise that they are being instigated by ezekwesili and her bands of charlatans.
Bullshit!!!
Is there anybody blocking the younger generation from politics and contesting? IBB had offered the youth the golden opportunity but they SQUANDERED it!!! Youth my foot!!!
The question is will Buhari be physically and mentally fit to continue to rule Nigeria post 2019? Remember his wife Aisha and the Ekiti governor’s palava? Aisha knows a lot about the physical and mental state of her husband better when she said, in expletive terms, that she would be the person to take on the governor because her husband is old. She said she has the energy. To me that’s a perfect diagnosis of Buhari’s fitness to continue beyond 2019. He simply hasn’t got the mental capacity, needless to talk about physical mettle. That’s unless he wants to replicate the Zimbabwe’s president example.