By AYO ESAN, ABUJA
Former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Olabode George has said that the proposed RUGA settlement for Fulani herdsmen by the Federal Government is unsettling the country, stating that President Muhammadu Buhari should urgently convene a national town hall meeting to espouse further on the policy.
Speaking at a press conference in Lagos, Tuesday, George said the timing of the RUGA settlement is suspicious, adding that the country is highly divided along tribal and religion lines.
George also said that the Independent National Electoral Commission as presently constituted should be scrapped as part of the efforts to save the country.
According to him, “the Nigerian state is definitely not at ease. There are so many multifarious challenges confronting us all. From the desert to the sea, there is that palpable tension, that festering social dislocations everywhere.”
“Our democracy is equally battered by the constant insidious encroachments of herdsmen into our farms, provoking tensions and murderous violence. The upsurge of bandits and kidnappers are the latest evils threatening the stability of our nation. The newly proposed Ruga settlements for Fulani Herdsmen across the nation should be given more thoughtful appraisal, more tempering analysis lest we are thrown into destabilizing unknown.”
He lamented that the “scourge of banditry, the new fangled menace of ubiquitous kidnappers and the murderous largeness of the Boko-Haram zealots have all compounded the situation.
“We are now being pushed to the brink. All kinds of faceless actors are now turning our present situation into a free for-all hate-mongering, reckless populism and sheer profiteering.
“It should not be this way: Our leaders should not be stampeded into panicky, unreflective actions. Let the ruling party, the opposition, the non-partisan and everyone else step back from the brink and withdraw into a more reflective, more sobering position.”
He stressed that the nation’s democracy is being stressed and being pushed beyond elastic sustenance. “The essence of democracy is the triumph of the people’s will. It is about the necessary assertive hurrah of the choice of the people.
“Thus, where the wish and the will of the people prevail, the crucial essence of democracy is thus fulfilled. But, unfortunately we are now straying. The electoral process is very flawed, distorted, mangled, fractured, dishonest, primitive, savaged by deliberate human intrusions.
“As a result of this overt flaws in the electoral process as represented by INEC, we are all basically disenfranchised as none can guarantee that the votes cast are sacrosanct. Everything is tampered with in the desperation to seize victory at any cost.”
George called for the immediate scrapping of the INEC which he accused as being one of the major contributor to political crisis in the country.
“The mandate of the people is flung into the dump site. And the danger crawls closer. How then do we restore order? How then do we restore sanity? We must be sincere. INEC must be dismantled in its entirety. It is presently compromised, partisan, wrapped in self-consuming incompetence.
“It must be retooled, revamped, overhauled to align with the profiles of such institutions as witnessed across the world where the full complement of the electronic system has long replaced the stone-age system of manual collation where electoral officers jump from tricycles to motor cycles to various moving contraptions and planes, physically carrying results to the Abuja Headquarters. What a shame! I cry for my beloved country.”
