Herdsmen crisis: Buhari not talkative President, must not speak on everything – Presidency

 


The Presidency has said that President Muhammadu Buhari is not a talkative and so he is not expected to speak on every matter that comes up in the country, including the herdsmen crisis.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, stated this on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Tuesday.

Nigerians are yearning to hear the position of the President on the lingering crisis being caused by herdsmen across the country.

Just few days ago, elder statesman, and Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka called on Buhari to address Nigerians before it’s too late.

Also, the Governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje, among many other Nigerians, had called for the enactment of a law to abolish the movement of cattle by herdsmen from the Northern part of the country to other parts.

Asked about the reaction of the President on this, the presidential aide said, “When you have knotty issues like this, many ideas will be proffered, many solutions will be canvassed. The President does not have to speak on each and every one of them.

“He does not have to, it was just an idea being proffered. It should be looked into and then if it is a consensus, it should be adopted.

“But it is not as one idea comes the President speaks on it, another idea comes, the President speaks on it, such must be a talkative President.”

Lending his voice to the Fulani herdsmen crisis, Senior pastor of Awaiting The Second Coming Of Christ Ministry, Adewale Giwa had on Wednesday said that the dream of people of the South West region to leave Nigeria would become true very soon.

Giwa called on president Buhari to caution his Fulani kinsmen from terrorizing Yoruba region and other parts of the country.

Giwa, while speaking with his church members on state of the nation in Akure on Tuesday, said the body language of president Buhari had further caused disunity, hatred and disharmony among the citizens in Nigeria.

This was after the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai had recently admitted the atrocities being committed by Fulani herdsmen across the country.

El-Rufai, in an interview with the BBC Hausa, said that Fulani herdsmen who carry out banditry kill ‘mercilessly’ because they do not believe in religion.

“…We cannot negotiate (with bandits). Eliminating them is the only solution to banditry,” El-Rufai said in reaction to Islamic cleric, Sheikh Gumi’s move to persuade the criminals to drop arms.

“I never believed that a Fulani herdsman who ventured into banditry and is collecting millions of Naira as ransom will repent. I spoke to Dr Gumi, who is my friend; I explained that the majority of these bandits don’t believe in the religion. That is why they kill mercilessly,” he was quoted as saying.