Renowned human rights activist, Mr Oghenejabor Ikimi Esq on Tuesday said Sen. Enyinnanya Abaribe overheated the polity by calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to resign over the spate of insecurity in the Country.
The legal practitioner made the assertion in a chat with Our Correspondent in Warri.
Ikimi who doubles as the National Executive Director of the Centre for the Vulnerable and Underprivileged, CENTREP said Sen. Abaribe’s statement itself amounts to insecurity pointing out that it could cause trouble within the Country.
“We play politics with everything in this country. With insecurity, we are playing politics. Abaribe was just playing politics.”
While noting that President Buhari cannot resign, Ikimi said the solutions to the insecurity in the land is to decentralize the Nigerian Police Force, NPF along regional lines.
“We should decentralize the police force so that we will end up having six(6) Inspector-Generals of Police.
” The people in the west have taken the bull by the horn by bringing Amotekun to protect them because the Federal Government is not Willing to decentralize the Police.
“Our police is over-centralized and that has failed us. Let us have 6 IGPs. Decentralize the police force. Let the South-South have their own IG. Let all the regions have their own IG.
“Decentralize the police force. Equip them because the kind of police we have in the South-South is not the one South-West will have because we don’t have peculiar security challenges. We have to make sure that the police we have in the North is not peculiar to the South-South. We should redeem the situation. Restructure this Country.”
Ikimi said the insecurity is not peculiar to the President Buhari led administration, adding that, “It started during the time of Olusegun Obasanjo where a politician was killed in Port-Harcourt.
Ikimi also said the vote of no confidence passed on the Service Chiefs by the National Assembly is just a protest that the representatives are not satisfied with insecurity in the Country.
Ikimi also noted that the resolution of the vote of no confidence cannot be enforced by the Executive except by the President.
” The resolution has no effect because it is only the Executive that can remove and replace the Service Chiefs.
“Having said that, the National Assembly is part of the insecurity because a majority of them got to the house by arming youths before they got to the National Assembly.
” So, they are part of the problems of insecurity. If Abaribe is calling for the resignation of the President, it is in order but we should look into the issue.
“The National Assembly is not free. They’re part of the problems.
When Sen. Abaribe was calling for the resignation of the president, the issue on the floor was not whether the president should resign or not but what are the solutions?
“The National Assembly should proffer solutions to the issues. So, resignation is not the solution. “
