Buhari group moves to shut down Senate

Members of Buhari Support Organisation (BSO), Enugu State chapter has said that unless Nigerian citizens come together to check the excesses of the country’s Senate as presently constituted, it would end up shutting down President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-graft war, and ultimately the nation’s fledgling democracy.

The group explained that it was in effort to mobilize citizens for active participation that it opened an online platform where compatriots should send their names and contact details, including phone numbers to ensure mass action against the Senate.

In a statement signed by its publicity secretary, Mr. Eze Chibueze, Enugu BSO said it was also challenged to act by the paradoxical remarks of the deputy president of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, at the 28th Enugu International Trade Fair at the weekend.

The group said it has resolved to resist any attempt to truncate Buhari’s anti-corruption war, which has been raised to a higher scale to the commendation of international transparency agencies, the United States of America, United Kingdom and prominent Africans, including former Ghanaian President, Flt. Lt. Jerry Rawlings.

They said they was saddened by Ekweremadu’s lamentation that Small and Medium Enterprises potentials are grossly underutilized and underdeveloped, stifled by lack of access to market and multiple taxation, stressing that the statement contradicts the position of the Senate during the confirmation hearing on the acting chairman of EFCC, Ibrahim Magu.

“We are therefore outraged at the Senate in one breadth admitting that official corruption is the bane of our economic prosperity and collective development and on the other breadth is viciously waging unpatriotic offensive against President Buhari’s war against pervasive corruption in our land. Who kills his war commander,” the group declared.

The Buhari supporters wondered why the “Senate could not trust the sound judgment of the nation’s Commander-in-Chief, who after perusing the Department of State Security (DSS)’s report referred to him in December 2016, dismissed it and sent back Ibrahim Magu’s name for the second time for confirmation? To us, it is corruption fighting back.”

BSO added: “We are in league with majority of patriotic Nigerians and foreign friends of our dear country who believe that Ibrahim Magu is doing a fantastic job; which in the first place made Mr. President to nominate him. Accordingly we call on Mr. President not to succumb to arrant blackmail and propaganda being mounted by looters.

“It’s our considered view that Magu’s recent exposure of the Paris Fund scam, in which the Senate President and some governors were allegedly fingered, the petition against the deputy Senate president on his table and sundry corruption charges against high number of senators that incensed the Senators against Magu.”

The group said it is the height of cruelty for any sane Nigerian to tamper with the Paris Club refund funds, which was recovered since 2005 and no president thought it wise to return the funds to the people since, and up till 2017 when our President Buhari directed that the funds be returned to the states for salary and pension arrears.

“We are therefore appalled that the name of prominent Senators have featured again in their custom to circumvent the funds meant for masses,” the organization remarked, stressing that in the sordid cross-road Nigerians have found themselves, BSO has no other option than “to mobilise patriotic Nigerians for a two million march to the National Assembly to shut down the Senate and drum support for the anti-corruption of war of President Buhari.”