Former Governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari has faulted ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s call for a new National Conference to address the nation’s security challenges.
He said Obasanjo has been obsessed with conferences since 2005 without any benefit to the nation. He said it was on record that the massacre of innocent citizens in Zaki Biam in Benue state and Odi in Bayelsa State was during the tenure of Obasanjo. He urged all political leaders to eschew bitterness and support security agencies to restore law and order.
He said security challenges, particularly terrorism, is not peculiar to Nigeria. He called for an end to blame games on the challenges confronting the nation. He said it was wrong to geo-politicize internal security problem and blame it on a particular section of the country, or an ethnic group. He accused some elements from the Southwest and the Southeast in particular, of making political capital out of the current challenges at the detriment of the overall commonwealth of the country.
Yari, who was the immediate past chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum(NGF), said terrorism is one issue that has dominated the world scene for more than a decade. The ex-governor made his views known in a statement in Abuja through his Media Aide, Ibrahim Dosara. He faulted the stigmatization of Fulani as criminals. He said: “In his letter, Obasanjo called for national conference.
The former leader has been obsessed with conferences since the one he organized in 2005 to perpetuate himself in power through third term failed woefully. “President Goodluck Jonathan also organized a conference purportedly to advance his ambition.Tax payers funds and quality time was wasted on the conferences but with nothing to show for it. Neither of the leaders implemented the reports of the conferences they organized.
“It is high time for all political leaders to eschew bitterness and avoid using our fellow citizens as guinea pigs in our ambitious political laboratories. Our security agencies should be supported and allow to perform their duties of maintenance of law and order without fear or favour, and without infecting ethic and sectional or religious venoms into their modus operandi.”
