Activist Aisha Yesufu, says the “body language” of the President Muhammadu Buhari emboldens bandits and terrorists in the country to continue their heinous acts.
Yesufu was reacting to the abduction of over 300 schoolgirls from Jangebe in Zamfara State by gunmen suspected to be bandits.
The rate of mass abduction of students by bandits in the northern part of Nigeria has become alarming in recent times. Just a week ago, bandits kidnapped dozens of students and workers of Government Science College in Kagara, Niger State. Bandits had also last year kidnapped over 300 schoolboys from Government Science Secondary School in Kankara, Katsina State. Aside from Kankara and Kagara, non-state actors had also abducted hundreds of secondary school girls from Chibok, in Borno State; and Dapchi in Yobe State.
Yesufu, co-convener of the #BringBackOurGirls movement, decried the spate of abductions in the country, adding that it was very sad that a recurrence of large scale abduction could happen under the watch of Buhari. She spoke on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ programme monitored by The PUNCH.
“At the #BringBackOurGirls movement, this is for us a sad moment especially because our government has not done anything in spite of the advocacy of almost seven years of advocacy that we’ve been calling on government to do the right thing to ensure citizens and students are protected.
“Students are being taken away. Is it because they are Nigerians? Is it because they are poor? Why are they left on their own for terrorists to take them at will?” the activist queried.
The President had on Thursday said his regime will deal decisively with terrorists and bandits in the country but Yesufu said Buhari’s words were mere rhetorics.
She said, “We are used to a president whose words mean nothing. He says one thing and the opposite happens. Part of the things we should be demanding as Nigerians is that the president should come out and tell us what is going.
“He was voted to bring the way forward, the salaries are paid, his bills are being taken care of. When the president first came in, they talk about the body language. What is the body language of the president today?
“The body language of the Muhammadu Buhari enables the terrorists, they know that we have an ineffective president as commander-in-chief, we have an incompetent one, we have a clueless one who does not even bother about what is happening in the country.”
The activist, who said localised policing was the way to go, urged states to come up with their security outfits.
– PUNCH