Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, has lambasted critics of his principal, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), who claim the President allegedly treats bandits with “softer hands” while being ruthless with separatists including Yoruba Nation agitator, Sunday Adeyemo aka Sunday Igboho; as well as the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu.
Adesina, in a piece on Friday titled, ‘See How They’re Being Sent To God To Answer For Their Crimes’, said the detractors of the current regime were only ignorant in their assertions.
The PUNCH reports that in the last few months, secessionist agitation has been loud in the Southern part of the country, championed mainly by Kanu and Igboho. The agitators cited perceived injustice in the allocation of resources and appointment into critical offices, insecurity, under-development, amongst reasons for wanting to leave the country.
Kanu, who was based in the United Kingdom, was recently hastily extradited from a foreign country. He has been detained in the custody of the Department of State Services and is facing terrorism-related charges before Justice Binta Nyako at a Federal High Court in Abuja.
On the other hand, the secret police raided Igboho’s Ibadan residence in July, killed two of his associates and arrested 12 of them. The DSS declared Igboho wanted after he narrowly escaped the raid. He was, however, intercepted at an airport in Benin Republic while he tried to catch a flight to Germany. The agitator has spent about three weeks in a Beninese custodial facility while the Nigerian Government has been pushing for his extradition.
Many Nigerians had lampooned the Buhari regime for allegedly sparing bandits and terrorists on the rampage in the northern part of the country while security forces clamp down on Igboho, Kanu and other separatists.
They had claimed separatists were peaceful people seeking exclusion from the Nigerian state because of perceived injustices but bandits and terrorists were bloodsuckers murdering innocent Nigerians, kidnapping students and raping young girls and women. The critics had claimed that the security forces should turn their heat away from separatists to bandits and terrorists that attacked Nigerian Air Force jets in Zamfara and Borno State recently.
Responding to critics of his principal in the piece, Adesina said separatists were not the only ones feeling the maddening heat of the government but bandits and terrorists were also being treated in the language they understand.
He wrote, “It amazes, even confounds, to hear some people say President Muhammadu Buhari should go after Boko Haram terrorists and bandits with the same gusto he has displayed against separatists in the country.
“Amazing and confounding because what the Buhari government does daily in the North-East, North-West, and North-Central parts of the country, where terrorists and bandits abound, is send them to God to answer for their crimes.
“President Buhari had ordered the security forces to crush all violent criminals and those sponsoring insurrection in the country, vowing that they would be treated “in the language they understand.” And it is happening without let or hindrance, without fear or favour.
“Why then do some people claim that certain troublers of the country are being treated with softer hands, than some others? This could be due to deliberate ignorance, mischief, or pure hatred. Those who keenly follow the war against insurgency and banditry in the northern part of the country, and who want to be honest, would admit that no quarter is being asked, and none is being given. Every effort is being made to extirpate the evil from our body polity.”
Adesina subsequently listed scores of military operations where hundreds of insurgents and bandits have been reportedly arrested or crushed.
“These are human beings, not banana suckers, who had sadly been misguided, mis-oriented, misdirected. Human beings, the crown of God’s creation. What else can society do, than to take them out, so that the decent majority can live in peace? Sad, very sad,” he stated.
“All over the country, terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, all types of criminals are being spoken to in the language they understand. And victory of good over evil is sure, inexorable. Yet some people say they see nothing that government is doing. Pitiable souls. Of all men most miserable.
“May God bless our troops. May He protect them, reward their labour of love. As for the cynics and septics, may God have mercy on them, open their eyes, and help them not to hate their own country any longer,” he concluded.
