TheCable

Ayodele Fayose, governor of Ekiti state, wants President Muhammadu Buhari to send Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, to Sambisa forest to address a press conference in order to prove that the government is winning the fight against insurgency.

In a statement issued on his behalf by Lere Olayinka, his special assistant on public communications and new media, Fayose urged the president to tell Nigerians the truth about the battle against Boko Haram.

Commenting on the most recent attack in Borno state, the governor said it was time for the president to lead the fight against insurgents in fulfillment “of his campaign promise”.

“They keep telling us that they have defeated Boko Haram technically while Nigerians are still being killed daily by Boko Haram, with over 100 people killed in Dalori, less than 12km to Maiduguri, Borno State capital,” the statement read.

“Isn’t it now necessary for the president to fulfill his promise of leading from the front and getting his information minister, Lai Mohammed to go and hold a press briefing in Sambasa forest unguarded by military men so as to show to Nigerians that indeed, they have defeated Boko Haram technically?”

He asked Buhari to allow the judiciary carry out its functions, accusing him of contributing to the rot in that sector by trying to use it to foist a one-party state.

“The president should respect the democratic principles of separation of powers by allowing the judiciary to do its job, obey court orders and focus on proper prosecution of people accused of corruption,” he said.

“Rather than castigating the judiciary and making the arm of government to appear as the stumbling block in his fight against corruption.

“In recent times, politicians like President Buhari are the ones responsible for the wrath in the judiciary because of their desperation to use the courts to foist one party state on Nigerians with conflicting judgments from election tribunals.

“The president and his men should stop media trial and playing with bogus figures. This is because as it is today, President Buhari is not fighting any corruption. Rather, he is engaging in political persecution in his bid to weaken opposition both in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and within his own party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

“Even the president’s party men are beginning to condemn openly the trial of people accused of corruption in the media, with newspapers quoting Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) on Saturday as describing it as convicting the suspects without giving them fair hearing.

“When your own men are corrupting an institution like the judiciary just because they needed to win back states like Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, Taraba and others that they lost at the polls, thereby causing the courts to give conflicting judgments, it is morally wrong for you to go outside the country and complain about such a judiciary.

“When your party men are encouraging people to commit perjury and confess to rigging elections just to discredit electoral victories of PDP and those made to confess to committing these crimes are allowed to walk the streets free just because they are serving the interest of APC, such a president lacks moral rights to complain about any institution stalling his fight against corruption because his own party men are number one promoters of corruption.

“The president must therefore act like a democratically elected president that he is by respecting the judiciary, which is a separate arm of government before his complain about the role of the judiciary in his fight against corruption can be taken seriously.”