The All Progressives Congress (APC) has warned the federal government
\nagainst going ahead with its reported plan to remove the elected Governor
\nof Borno and appoint a military administrator to oversee the affairs of
\nthe state, under the guise of intensifying the fight against Boko Haram.
\nIn a statement issued in Ibadan on Monday by its Interim National
\nPublicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the presidency
\nshould realize that there is always a limit to impunity, and that if
\nindeed anyone should be removed over the protracted insurgency in the
\nstate and the entire North-east, it is President Goodluck Jonathan.
\n\u201dWhat is happening in the North-east in general and Borno state in
\nparticular is failure of leadership at the highest level of government,
\nespecially because the imposition of a state of emergency in the three
\nworst-hit states has given the President emergency powers to deal with the
\nprotracted crisis.
\n\u201dAs the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, President
\nJonathan is in full control of all the instruments of coercion available
\nto the country, which he can and has been deploying at will. If,
\ntherefore, some seemingly implacable dead-enders have continued to kill,
\nmaim and destroy in any part of the country, no one but the President
\nshould be held liable. Everyone knows a Governor does not deploy troops.
\n\u201dAlso, it is trite to say that the raison d\u2019etre of any government is the
\nprotection of lives and property. This means that the moment any
\ngovernment fails in that key responsibility, it can no longer justify its
\nreason for existence,\u201d it said.
\nAPC said Gov. Kashim Shettima and the entire people of Borno are the
\nvictims in the senseless war being waged by Boko Haram, and that what they
\ndeserve are succour and support, not further victimization by a federal
\ngovernment which seems to have run out of ideas on how to subdue the sect.
\nThe party said no one should lend any credence to the denial, by the
\npresidency, of the evil plot to remove Gov. Shettima, because this
\npresidency\u2019s words have never been worth the paper on which they are
\nwritten.
\n\u201dSeveral times in the past, this presidency has issued a straight-faced
\ndenial only to go ahead and do exactly what it said it won\u2019t. Against such
\nblatant lack of credibility and integrity, we do not believe the
\npresidency\u2019s denial,\u201d it said.
\nAPC said it is becoming increasingly clear that the presidency may be
\nusing the state of emergency in the North-east to fight its own political
\nbattle and get rid of those it perceives as a stumbling block to its
\ninterest in 2015.
\nThe party said if that were not the case, the presidency will not be
\nflying a satanic kite of planning to remove the Governor of Borno when it
\nis clear that this Governor has done everything humanly possible to
\nsupport the federal government and the brave men and women fighting the
\nsect, in addition to providing succour to the good people of Borno who
\nhave been terribly traumatized by the activities of the misguided
\nterrorists.
\n\u201dThe state of emergency has run its initial course and has even been
\nrenewed, yet the insurgency continues. That means the federal government
\nmust think out of the box to evolve new strategies to tackle the
\ninsurgency. One of such is to heighten intelligence gathering that will
\nmake it possible for our security forces to preempt attacks. Another is to
\nwin the hearts and minds of the local population so they can do more to
\nhelp fish out the insurgents.
\n\u201dWe are sad to note, however, that the federal government seems to have
\nits own agenda, which may include allowing the insurgency to fester so
\nthat elections will not be able to hold in the area in 2015. If anyone
\nthinks this is outlandish, such a person under-estimates the desperation
\nof this presidency going into the 2015 elections,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has warned the federal government against going ahead with its reported plan to remove the elected Governor of Borno and appoint a military administrator to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n