(Special Report) Is S’West articulate or divided on what it really wants from Buhari?
Recent fireworks of meetings, presidential courtesy visits and even citizens outbursts on happenstances in the region in recent times relative to insecurity propelled by serial criminalities in terms of banditry, highway kidnappings, farmers/herdsmen crisis and 2023 political calculations by leaders of thought in the South West geopolitical zone of the country is yet to take a clear dimension as to what the region really wants.
Only 48 hours ago, there were reports that a bus load of travellers were abducted along Akure road in Ondo State by kidnappers suspected to be Fulani herdsmen.
Whereas there had been rising number of individual outbursts criticizing the terror activities of herdsmen in the region, within this week, governors of the region hurriedly met at Ibadan to review security situation, the region’s lead socio-political body, the Afenifere, was led to the Presidential Villa to see President Muhammadu Buhari, by Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye, where they presented some demands to the president, including the implementation of true federalism.
Durojaiye, in his lead submission, told Buhari that “We will be a greater nation if we sincerely practise true federalism and think and act as Nigerians rather than as champions of the smaller units we were born into. Our big size is an asset worthy of preservation.”
Afenifere also said the country was in dire need of development in the power and agricultural sectors especially in the field of afforestation, irrigation and revival of agricultural products like cocoa, groundnut, cotton, palm products and processing them for domestic consumption and export.
However, the national leader of the ruling party, APC, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who was on the team, was silent on security issues hobbling his region and was quick to infrom the press that the meeting that its essence was to thank the president and congratulate him on his re-election.
Responding to the Afenirefe leaders after their presentations, Buhari told the Afenifere leaders that what the Southwest was facing was similar to what had been happening in the Northeast and North central regions, but pledged that his government would surmount the challenge.
“It is true that we have made some progress but there are still some problems which we are trying to solve within our physical and material resources. We campaigned in 2015 and this year it is security, economy and fighting corruption. These things are basic,” he said.
It was very hard to really calibrate the level of satisfaction of the Afenifere members after the response of the President.
However, back to Ibadan, venue of the larger gathering of the region’s leaders, fireworks, anger and frustrations are rising at the summit as participants including all states’ governors from the region over the collapsing insecurity situation in the region.
Otherwise, the falling level of insecurity in the south-west forced the state governors, monarchs and leaders of thought to make strong case for the establishment of state and council police to complement the efforts of the federal police.
In fact, they agreed to rise above party partisanship to set up joint patrol teams to ward off the criminals that have been killing and kidnapping innocent persons as well as check the activities of killer herdsmen that have made the highways unsafe for travellers.
The governors, who spoke at the “Stakeholders’ Security Summit for Southwestern States” organised by the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission in Ibadan, include Dr. Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti), Seyi Makinde (Oyo), Babajide Sanw-Olu (Lagos), Dapo Abiodun (Ogun), Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (Ondo) and Gboyega Oyetola (Osun).
Besides, a son of the soil and Vice President of the Federal Republic, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, was is still in USA, where he played down the level of insecurity in the country even as his region continue to cry as worst hit.
On the other hand, a fresh trending video on social media where a purple-blouse wearing woman, who simply addressed herself as an Ekiti woman, lashed out at a number of Nigerian leaders beginning with President Buhari, to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu and pastors over their silence on the killings and atrocities being perpetrated in Yoruba land by Fulani herders.
From all indications, the question now is what does the South West want from the Federal Government?
Is it return to hitherto safety of lives and property, 2023 presidency or State Police that can only come from the legislation of the National Assembly and not even the presidency?
