INSECURITY: Lai Mohammed Hints PMB, Tinubu Were Irresponsible
Nigeria’s minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, has said calls by some prominent Nigerians for the resignation of President Muhammadu Buhari over insecurity were irresponsible and amount to playing “dirty politics”, but Nigerians have responded that Mohammed’s position was a hint that the president was equally irresponsible for making such calls in the past.
Mohammed met with members of the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) in Lagos on Thursday said the president was elected in 2015 for a four-year term and re-elected in 2019 for another four-year term, adding that no amount of hysterical calls for resignation would prevent him from serving out his second term.
He said: “In the wake of the killings, there have been calls in some quarters for Mr. President to resign. Well, let me say here that this call amounts to playing dirty politics with the issue of security, and it is cheap and irresponsible.
“Calling on the president to resign every time there is a setback in the war on terror is a needless distraction and cheap politicking. Let’s stop playing politics with the issue of security.”
Nigerians have however continued to remind the minister that back in May 2013, President Buhari asked the then president, Goodluch Ebele Jonathan to vacate office for “failing” to tackle insecurity across the country.
They told the minister that Buhari, while addressing journalists at his residence in Daura, Katsina state, said: “Jonathan should vacate and give way to competent hand to govern the country.”
They also reminded the minister that on November 5, 2014, Bola Ahmed Tinubu asked Jonathan to resign as the Nigerian president, while he was speaking in Ilorin, Kwara State, during the formal declaration of former Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed’s bid for the second term in office.
The event was attended by President Buhari who was then an APC’s presidential aspirant.
Tinubu had said, “I saw the sea of refugees caused by the Boko Haram insurgents and the lies coming from Jonathan’s administration. They have exhibited failure, lack of capacity, vision and creativity. The lies of yesterday are what they repeat today and are what they will repeat tomorrow. They are lying to you.
“They are lying about the security, toying about the security of this country. I don’t have time to explain the logic of their lies. But if you control the armed forces and you are the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic, why should any part of this country be under occupation? And you give us excuses every day. In any civilized country, Jonathan should have resigned. But if he will not resign, he should wait for our broom; we will sweep him away.”
Nigerians said Lai Mohammed’s argument that asking an elected president to resign over insecurity was irresponsible applies to President Buhari as well as Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“These two have been irresponsible, according to Mr Lai Mohammed”, Abubakar Ahmed Aliyu, a Kaduna-based stockbroker told Nigerian Sketch.
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