The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has backed the call for resignation of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Recall that the Senate Leader of the Senate, Enyinnaya Abaribe, had while contributing to a debate on the deteriorating security situation in the country on the floor of the Senate yesterday, said Buhari should resign because his government had failed to proffer solutions to the high rate of insecurity across Nigeria.
In a reaction to call, the Presidency, dismissed Abaribe as an “arm chair critic” describing the comment as “foolish.”
In a statement to DAILY POST on Thursday signed by Emmanuel Onwubiko, its director, HURIWA lambasted the presidency for attacking Abaribe over his message.
According to HURIWA, “We, the members of the foremost civil Rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria have watched with a great deal of consternation and unfathomable disappointment, the unconstitutional and malicious reactions from the desk of the media adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari to Distinguished Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe (PDP) a ranking, reputable Legislator of global acclaim and the senate minority leader, over his legislative assertion that President Muhammadu Buhari should quit for failing spectacularly to rein in the ever expanding frontiers of grave threats to Nigeria’s national security over the last five years.
“We condemn the malicious dimension that Shehu Garba, the senior assistant media to the president took in his reaction to the statesmanly call by the senator.
“We must state however that we are not completely disappointed that Garba Shehu veered off into the arena of argumentum ad hominem of attacking the messenger Distinguished Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe rather than confronting the message.
“This has become a regular pattern of work by the officials of the media desk of Buhari.
“We are however compelled, as patriots, to once more appeal to President Buhari to stop wasting scarce public fund in maintaining a media office in his office populated by crass opportunists who are garrulous, cantankerous, anti-constitution and who speak as if Nigeria is a full blown totalitarian or fascist state.
“We are under a constitutional democracy and Mr. President was elected, inaugurated and must abide by the tenets of the Nigerian constitution of 1999 (as amended).
“It is wrongheaded for the harmless position canvassed legally in the open plenary session of the senate of the federal republic of Nigeria by the senate’s minority leader, Abaribe to be greeted from the Presidential spokesman with a weird verbal outbursts and it is unstatesmanly and unpatriotic that the presidential spokesperson resorted to using gutter and unpresidential language to attack senator Abaribe.
“First and foremost, the call for the resignation of Mr. President predicated upon the existential facts, indeed from abundance of empirical body of evidence that he (Mr President) has failed to stop the ever increasing mass killings of Nigerians by his kinsmen the armed Fulani herdsmen and many other freelance armed hoodlums and for failing to realistically wage result-oriented counter terror war.
“His (Abaribe’s) call is the right call. The call was made from the abundance of love for the survival of Nigeria currently buffeted by a monumental amount of violent threats to her territorial integrity.
“Moreover, the call for the resignation of president Muhammadu Buhari only came after the president himself expressed his lack of capacity to defeat the armed insurgency and the rising attacks on innocent citizens by armed Fulani herdsmen, armed bandits, Boko Haram terrorists and many other lawless anarchists who have made life so difficult for commuters on all federal roads in Nigeria.
“It is not in doubt that the main responsibilities of the government, among other fundamental functions are foreign diplomacy, military defense, maintenance of domestic peace, administration of justice, provision of public goods and services, promotion of economic advancement, growth and development and the operationalization of social-insurance and social-welfare programmes.
“These facts are well articulated and universally accepted by humanity and all scholars of political economy and science.
“Again, the aforementioned responsibilities of government are captured by section 14 (1) (2) of the Nigerian constitution which states thus: ‘(1) The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a State based on the principles of democracy and social justice. (2) It is hereby, accordingly, declared that: (a) sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government through this Constitution derives all its powers and authority; (b) the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government: and (c) the participation by the people in their government shall be ensured in accordance with the provisions of this constitution.’
