By JOHN ONAH, Abuja
The Director-General of the Progressive Governors’ Forum PGF, Salihu
Moh. Lukman has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently take
steps to overhaul the machinery of his government in order to
strengthen its capacity to respond to governance issues.
Lukman gave the charge in an advisory issued Thursday in Abuja,
adding that like other Nigerians, Governors are at the receiving end
of the unfortunate twist of the #EndSARS protest.
He said if all agencies and appointees of the Federal Government were
alive to their responsibilities, the current pressure on the president
to act in the wake of the protests would not have arisen.
“Although given their constitutional powers, they also have critically
important responsibilities, but the Federal Government has superior
responsibility to initiate a response to the current crisis.
“While this is not a period to resort to any blame game, it is,
however, important to recognise that part of the problem weakening
Federal initiatives is the inability of many, if not all the mandate
ministries and agencies responsible for one form of intervention or
the other to competently and effectively initiate needed responses.
“For instance, how can we have a Ministry of Police Affairs and the
ministry is unable to simulate good engagement strategy with innocent
young Nigerians calling for reform of the Nigeria Police?
What is the advantage of democracy if a ministry cannot be able to
engage the demands of citizens? Where is the Ministry of Disaster
Management and Humanitarian Services in all these? Doesn’t the mandate
of the ministry include initiatives to prevent disaster? Or, is
disaster management limited to attending to human casualties by way of
providing palliatives? Where is the Ministry of Youth in all this? How
can the ministry absent itself from centres of legitimate protests of
our youth for more than a week? Where is the Ministry of Defence?
Where is the Ministry of Interior? Where is the National Orientation
Agency? “If all the agencies of government and political appointees
managing these agencies had handled their responsibilities as is
expected, this crisis would have been averted.
In fact, the pressure on President Buhari’s direct intervention will
not have been the case. The crisis produced by the #EndSARS protest
highlight the need for the President to urgently take steps to
overhaul the machinery of government if our democracy and our
government are to be able to meet the expectation of citizens. It is
the constitutional prerogative of the President to determine the best
strategy and the details of governmental reforms aimed at overhauling
the machinery of government to make them more effective in responding
to the democratic needs of Nigerians”, he said. Lukman said as loyal
members of the APC and importantly as patriotic Nigerians,
“we need to appeal to our leaders, in particular President Muhammadu
Buhari, to kindly and urgently hasten intervention through appropriate
civic engagement across every part of the country to ensure
restoration of peace in the country. It is now a national imperative
for all our political leaders, irrespective of partisan, ethnic,
religious, gender, or any other demographic affiliation, to forge a
strong national unity as a cardinal requirement for restoration of
peace in the country.
We are faced with an emergency situation and
every political leader should recognise that, in fact, the political
contest is only possible under conditions of a peaceful atmosphere.
“The last few days, since Monday, October 19, 2020, are periods of
excruciating pain, and, both as Nigerians but especially as APC
members, we watched helplessly how innocent, legitimate and peaceful
protest of our children was allowed to be hijacked.
It is said that the unfortunate poor management of the #EndSARS
protest has led to the incidence of the night of Tuesday, October 20,
2020, in Lekki, which resulted in the attack of innocent protesters.
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