Islamic Affairs, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, on Thursday, advised the Federal Government to sit up and urgently address the rising insecurity in the country.
While the Sultan spoke in Abuja at the third quarterly meeting of the Nigeria Interreligious Council, the Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, gave a similar warning in a statement by his media aide, Terver Akase.
The monarch and the governor’s warning came two days after gunmen attacked the Nigerian Defence Academy and abducted a military officer after killing two others.
Ortom, while reacting to an attack on him by the Presidency, warned that with the rate that insecurity was increasing in the country, bandits and killer herdsmen might one day take over the Aso Rock Villa without any resistance.
The governor warned that danger was looming with the way the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), was handling the security situation in the country.
Ortom, had in an interview with Channels Television a few days ago accused the President of trying to “Fulanise” the country.
He said this while reacting to Buhari’s approval of the recommendations of a committee to review 368 grazing reserves across 25 states in the country.
But the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in a statement on Wednesday, accused Ortom of using sectarian language similar to that which caused the Rwandan genocide.
On Thursday, the governor, through his media aide, Akase, said Nigerians might wake up one day to find out that armed herders, bandits and other terrorists had taken over Aso Rock Villa without any resistance and the current occupants would flee the country.
Ortom described the statement by the Presidency against him as a reflection of the quality of its thinking.
“The tone of the said statement shows the quality of the Presidency Nigeria currently has. They abandoned the message and went for the messenger,” the governor was quoted as saying.
He said that the Presidency should focus on ending the killing of innocent Nigerians, fix the economy as it promised and stop the stinking corruption under its watch.
The statement said, “They can’t run away from their responsibility. They were brought to power to serve the country and not to oppress the people and suppress their freedom of speech.
“They are on record to have publicly promised during their campaigns before the 2015 elections that they would respect the rights and freedoms of Nigerians if elected. Sadly, what the people of this country have got from the current government is the opposite of that promise.
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