Last week Tuesday in Abuja, Senator Yusuf Abubakar Yusuf (APC Taraba Central), fielded questions from journalists on burning issues in the country. TAIYE ODEWALE was there. Excerpts.
Do you support the call by some Nigerians for resignation of President Muhammadu Buhari from office or those seeking for his impeachment?
Thank you very much for the question. I don’t support the laughable idea because it won’t lead us to anywhere as far as solutions to the problems at hand are concerned.
Some few months ago, we were asking the President to change the Service Chiefs. They had been changed, what has happened?
Realities on ground have shown very clearly that the problem is a societal thing or even a pandemic, requiring the cooperation and support of all Nigerians to combat it and not just that of government alone. It is everybody’s responsibility and not President Buhari alone . Some few months ago, nobody thought there would be insecurity in Southeast, now it is happening virtually all over the country, and it is a variation of so many things coming together.
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Some people are saying break up the country, some said change the leadership, impeach Mr President. How will that help the situation?
If you impeach the president, who takes over? Is it not the Vice President and will that not be the same government? Or you even remove the President and his Vice, and the Senate President takes over, is it not the same government? President Buhari alone cannot solve this problem until we people stand up together and work with him, then we solve this problem. In my own opinion, President Muhammadu Buhari is doing the best that he could. We must also synergize with him. We must give him the kind of assistance that will help solve our problem. The responsibility to provide security lies not only on President Muhammadu Buhari but also on all state governors, who also control the local government councils. In a nutshell, a million of President Muhammadu Buhari cannot solve this problem without citizens’ cooperation .
In clear terms, what and what do you think should be done in solving the problems?
We must think out of the box and part of that is to see it as our own responsibility to solve insecurity in this country. Intelligence is very important in this regard. Though there are some elements of frustration here and there, but people must rise up to the task of giving the needed information on criminally minded ones around them, to the security agencies. Insecurity is epidemic in this country now because people failed to play their own role in terms of communal protection through intelligence gathering and sharing .
You said we should think out of the box in finding solutions to the problems, don’t you think establishment of State Police as obtainable in other federations is very necessary now?
I do not support the idea of State Police at this time, but I support community policing, so that we make security everybody’s business. Autonomy of the local government councils across the country is imperative at this time. There is unnecessary too much emphasis on President Buhari, while there is little or no attention on what the state and local governments are doing. As I earlier said, President Buhari alone cannot solve this problem until we people stand up together and work with him, then we will solve the problem.
Away from problem of insecurity, as one of the 13-member National Caretaker and Special Convention Commitee of the ruling All Progressives Congress ( APC ), what will you say on the crises rocking the party in some states over the re – registration and revalidation process in respect of registers allegedly being hijacked?
For us in the National Caretaker Commitee, nobody is hijacking party register anywhere but in putting to rest such allegations in Rivers , Kwara etc, after the whole exercise, portals will be opened for anybody that misses out to register. The portal arrangement planned for all inclusive membership registration, is one of the measures being put in place to fight god-fatherism within the party .
What is being done now by the National Caretaker Committee of our great party, is to get it stabilised and by extension, stabilise the country politically, devoid of politics of god-fatherism.
