Enyinnaya Abaribe, the senator representing Abia South Senatorial District at the National Assembly, wants President Muhammadu Buhari to start taking responsibility for cases of insecurity in the country.
“How will you act on what you don’t know? Mr. President, let us beg this President, please take responsibility for one thing. It’s not everything that you don’t know… so that we will be safe in Nigeria,” Abaribe said on Thursday while contributing to a motion on the recent killings in Kogi state by suspected herdsmen.
In his contribution on the floor of the Senate, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senator criticised the President for constantly denying responsibility when things go wrong.
According to him, Buhari is always in the habit of saying “I don’t know.”
Atai Aidoko Ali, the senator representing Kogi East at the Assembly, had raised a motion on the activities of armed bandits whom he referred to as “Fulani herdsmen”.
He said the herdsmen killed 32 people in two local government areas of the state on Wednesday.
But while contributing to Ali’s motion, Abaribe, said Buhari, by his attitude, had not shown readiness to curb insecurity across the country.
His words: “I agree with the senate leader who said this is a moment where we have to work with the executive. The only thing I don’t agree with is, this executive that you want us to work with, have they accepted that they are the people that have responsibility?
“We have a President who will say ‘I don’t know my IG didn’t even follow my order’. A President that says ‘I didn’t even know when this happened’. Every little thing he doesn’t know.”
But he was cut short by Ahmed Lawan, the Senate Leader, who invoked Order 53 (4) to call his colleague to order and ask him to confine his observations to the subject matter.
That, however, did not stop Abaribe from continuing his attack on the President, noting that security operatives were incapacitated because the “Commander-in-chief is always not knowing”.
“I’m keeping my contribution to security and the Commander-in-chief of Nigeria is in charge of security and when the Commander-in-chief says I don’t know what happened, then we have to worry whether this our security is actually in the right hands.
“Let us bring to the fore another aspect which the Senate Leader mentioned. He said that the security forces are overstretched, we agree but distinguished Senator Marafa has told us here that information was given in the Zamfara case to the same security people and the Governor was dancing Arabango somewhere else and left the security.
“Is that not what you said? So, it is not a question of not having enough people, it is a question of not acting on intelligence and information that you have. And of course I can’t blame them for not acting because the President says I don’t know.
“How will you act on what you don’t know? Mr. President, let us beg this President; please take responsibility for one thing. It’s not everything that you don’t know so that we will be safe in Nigeria.” He said