The Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) today called on President Goodluck Jonathan to go beyond his removal of the National Security Adviser and the Minister of Defence, and overhaul the nation’s entire security apparatus.
The Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) today called on President Goodluck Jonathan to go beyond his removal of the National Security Adviser and the Minister of Defence, and overhaul the nation’s entire security apparatus.
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In a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Osita Okechukwu, CNPP said it viewed the removal of Retired General Andrew Owoeye Azazi and Dr Bello Halliru Mohammed only as a first step in the right direction and the “tip of the ice-berg in a genuine effort to arresting the Boko Haram induced dangerous slide of Nigeria to a failed state.”
It stressed that the security apparatus architecture comprises of the core commanders, equipment and strategy cum tactics, and called on Mr. Jonathan to be reminded that elementary infantry tactics prescribes that in the face of serial loss of battles by a Commander-in-Chief, the vital option open to him is total overhaul of security apparatus.
“This theorem is anchored on the truism that if you repeat a failed methodology severally or shy away from scorch-earth sanction policy; the tendency is that you get the same result,” the Conference said. “It is hard therefore to locate how the removal of the two men can make appreciable difference.”
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While CNPP said it understood that the new NSA, Rtd. Colonel Sambo Dasuki is a very fine officer, it said only President Jonathan and the leadership of the People’s Democratic Party leadership can address the issues raised by General Azazi at the recent South South Economic Summit.
In a statement at that conference which highly embarrassed President Jonathan and the PDP, Azazi had drawn attention to the nexus between national security and development, and that you could not have one without the other.
“The issue of violence did not increase in Nigeria until when there was a declaration by the current president that he was going to contest,” CNPP recalled Azazi to have said, “PDP got it wrong from the beginning. ……… let us examine all these issues to see whether the level of violence in the North East just escalated because Boko Haram suddenly became better trained, better equipped and better funded or something else was responsible. It takes very long for somebody to be a sniper.”
CNPP also drew attention to the Federal Government White Paper on the Ambassador Usman Galtimari Panel Report, gazetted in May 2012, on politics and Boko Haram insurgents in Borno State, and called for its implementation as that would assist the new NSA.
It also recalled how a former governor of that State, Senator Ali Sheriff “in an unholy alliance with ex-president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo used the ECOMOG thugs to rig the 2003,” a scenario it said was repeated with Yan Kalare in Gombe and Bauchi States under the watch of their governors and the C-in-C.
“It is our considered view that the Transformation Agenda of the Jonathan regime should commence the day he transforms the PDP in our collective interest, for the survival of our dear country and the future of our children,” the statement said. “There will be no peace until the PDP and its affiliates imbibe democratic ethos, renounce do-or-die politics and be prepared for regime change. Regime change born out of free and fair elections is the brand name, sign post and epitaph which our sister countries - Ghana and Senegal harvest in the committee of nations.”
“The first step in this trajectory is full interrogation of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the then governors of North East states and all their accomplices.
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