…Vows to crack down very hard on arsonists, secessionists’ campaigners
…May declare state of emergency
President Muhammadu Buhari has issued a stern warning to those bent on destroying the country through promoting insurrection and burning down critical national assets across the country.
The President read the Riots Act after he received a briefing from Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu, on series of attacks on its facilities of the electoral body around the country.
President Buhari promised to give those destroying the INEC facilities and attacking police stations in the South-East the “shock of their lives”.
Recall that the South-East region has been involved in agitation to break away from the country over the past decades, a leftover of the agitation that led to the Nigerian civil war in 1967.
Numerous separatist groups have accused the federal government of discrimination against the region, which comprises the Igbo ethnic group, and demanding the creation of a separate nation of Biafra.
There has also been a recent resurgence of agitations in the South-West region for a breakaway nation made up of states in the Yoruba-speaking region.
Sources close to the president have indicated that the President may declare a state of emergency in all the five states of the South-East soon.
The President, who noted that those carrying out attacks in the zone, were not born during the Biafra war and could not have witnessed the devastation it brought, swore to teach them hard lessons. He promised to continue leading the country in accordance with Constitutional provisions.
On the dangers posed to future elections by the burning of INEC facilities, President Buhari said he would give the Electoral Commission all it needed to operate “so that no one would say we don’t want to go, or that we want a third-term. There will be no excuse for failure. We’ll meet all INEC’s demands”.
In his briefing, the INEC chairman, Prof. Yakubu, said that so far, there have been 42 cases of attacks on INEC offices nationwide, since the last General Election, adding that the 42 incidents so far occurred in 14 States of the Federation for a variety of reasons.
“The intention is to incapacitate the Commission, undermine the nation’s democracy and precipitate a national crisis”, he stated.
