A renowned professor of International Law and jurisprudence, Akin Oyebode, yesterday took a swipe at the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and the continued killings in the countryand concluded that his administration had forfeited its primary purpose of existence which was meant to guarantee the safety of life and property of the people.
Oyebode also said that the recent declaration of June 12 as Democracy Day and recognition of the late business mogul, Chief Moshood Kasimawo Olawale Abiola as winner of the 1993 presidential election, would not be enough to guarantee a safe ride for the president in the 2019 elections if the genocide continued with his refusal to ruthlessly deal with the self-confessed perpetrators.
He added that not even the All Progressives Congress (APC), National Leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, would deliver the South-West for him.
Speaking with New Telegraph at a public lecture organised by the Nigerian Union Journalists, Lagos State Ministry of Information and Strategy Chapel, Oyebode lamented that it was disheartening that Nigerian leaders and governments had declared themselves self-righteous when in actual fact the people who they govern or lead were deprived of the power to adjudicate on their government’s performance saying; “Salt doesn’t declared itself palatable until people taste it.”
Speaking on the state of the nation, the professor of international law said:” Nigerian is a failing state. Though it hasn’t completely failed and we have to quickly address that. They said that whenever there is fire on the mounting, the children will run. Things are getting worse daily and all hands must be on deck to safe Nigeria from total destruction. The statistics are very bad, but they are not strange. I think most people recognise that we are falling on hard times. In terms of the killings and wastage of human lives in the country, it is so embarrassing that the world largest black nation cannot safeguard the lives of her population.
“It is a great embarrassment for the Buhari government, because the whole essence of government is to protect lives and property of our people. The government that cannot protect its citizens definitely has forfeited its reason for existence. So, the Buhari government has its work cut out for it; that the world is watching whether Nigeria will live up to her billings as an important country in the world or a country that had collapsed; that is the blunt truth.
“Unfortunately, not many people want to say the truth because they are afraid of the powers that be, but some few people still have the courage to talk.”
Lamenting that the government was claiming to be righteous and giving self-assessment of its integrity, he said Nigerians should be left to be judge on the current administration, saying that people had been taken for granted with the development in the country.
The former University of Lagos don added; “Salt will never declare itself palatable. It is until when one tastes it that he would know. We are in a country where those in office pass vote of confidence on themselves, thereby depriving the people the rights to adjudicate the way they had been running things. Nigerians have been taking too much for guaranteed; and we have no excuse for the deterioration.”
“He wondered why the president failed to do the needful when the leader of the Fulani herdsmen association, Miyetti Allah, allegedly confessed that the recent killing were perpetrated by his men in retaliation of the killings of their cattle while the President took the clash between the people of Ife and Hausa the community seriously that a monarch and other residents were taken to Abuja.
“If we were told that Fulani herdsmen, Miyetti Allah, confessed and admitted that because some cows were rustled and that was the reasons for their action, their response was most unfortunate. I believe that the leaders of the Miyatti Allah should be rounded up by now and tried as terrorists and for ethnic cleansing and even genocide.
“Now that SERAP has taken the matter to the United States Consul, I am scandalised that Nigeria could be brought before an international court. More so, Buhari is Fulani. His mother is Kanuri from Borno State. It appears he is treating his fellow brothers with kid-gloves.”
He advised the president to tow the path of honour by allowing justice to prevail and ensure that the perpetrators of the wanton killings were brought to book irrespective of whose ox was gored.
He said: “The fact that he is Fulani doesn’t mean he cannot stand for justice. People will obey him and respect him more if he cracks and descend heavily on the self-confessed murderers. I don’t know any country where self-murderers are given a pat on the back. It isn’t done anywhere. If you kill someone and admitted doing so, such person should face the music. In other climes, if one admitted to have killed someone, he faces the music. You will remember when we had crisis in Ile-Ife, they rounded up the entire place with soldiers.”
