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Buhari not doing enough on security, says Bafarawa

By Igho Akeregha, Abuja
21 January 2021   |   3:09 am
Former Governor of Sokoto State, Attahiru Bafarawa, has expressed frustration over the manner President Muhammadu Buhari is handling security matters and the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the country.

President Muhammadu Buhari Photo:Twitter

Decries ‘so much’ attention on COVID-19 </strong
Former Governor of Sokoto State, Attahiru Bafarawa, has expressed frustration over the manner President Muhammadu Buhari is handling security matters and the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the country.

According to him, the administration appears to be overwhelmed, like kidnapping, cattle rustling, and other forms of banditry are now common across the country.

The Garkunwa Sokoto, at a media parley in his Abuja residence yesterday, said as a former governor and elder statesman from the North, he had to speak out on behalf of other Nigerians who do not have the opportunity.

“The country is suffering from a lot of insecurity and I’m speaking out now because if I do not and a Southern President comes and is not performing and we speak against him, people will say when a Northerner was there and did not perform, why didn’t you speak against him?” he explained.

He charged the President to live up to his responsibilities to save the country from the throes of insecurity.

Reading from a prepared speech, he commended the Federal Government for its prompt response to COVID-19 but questioned the spending of N3.5 billion from March to December 2020 to combat the disease.

Bafarawa noted that the whopping sum was without a budget for research, drug purchase, or manufacture.

He added that aside from the amount, more funding was being solicited from local and international organisations for the COVID-19 project.

“It seems that the project is becoming a serious economic loss and the government is oblivious of the fact that this venture is becoming lucrative for some people,” he said.

He observed that the government’s attention to COVID-19 was getting out of proportion, to the extent that other important areas of socio-economic development were relegated to the background.

Even the challenges posed by the nation’s educational system, economy and agriculture, and more importantly, the security of the country, are severely affected, he added.

“It should be noted that I am not underplaying the effect of the pandemic across the world in general and Nigeria in particular. It may not be logical to say that coronavirus’ effect is not disturbing. But it is plausible to infer that the security of life and property in Nigeria do not matter much, in comparison to the attention given to COVID-19. It is everybody’s guess that every aspect of human life or activity would be completely paralysed,” he said.

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