The pan-Yoruba group, Afenifere, has knocked the president, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, over his plan to conduct the 2023 national population census, at the late hour of his administration.
The Yoruba social-political group, which described the planned exercise as wasteful and insensitive, said the president is very inconsiderate, by the fact that Nigerians have been traumatized enough by the level of banditry, terrorism, and unexpected monumental failure and pocket of violence, that characterized the just concluded 2023 general elections, in the country.
This was contained in a communique issued by the group, at the end of its monthly meeting, held at the country home of its leader, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, in Isanya-Ogbo, Ogun State.
According to the group, the already fading administration of President Buhari, cannot be trusted with such a huge project, noting that the country is still in shock from the failure of this administration, during the 2023 elections, coupled with other vices, that have held people ransome, in their own country.
“Afenifere is particularly bemused that the government expects participation in the headcount by citizens still incensed and distraught by the trauma of violence and brigandage of the elections or by those in IDP camps within their country, in whose ancestral homes terrorists in occupation will now be counted as new indigenes.
“All factors considered, including its inability to supervise a transparent electoral process and a lesser headcount exercise, the integrity deficiency of this administration is abysmally compounded in conducting the census, where partisan disputes in Nigeria are often at the level of communities, states, and ethnic nationalities, having been politicized over time.
“Afenifere decries the most insensitive deployment of over 100 billion nairas on this wasteful exercise as scandalous and an economic offense.
“Afenifere conclusively says there is no compelling reason why the census must be held by the expiring Buhari administration and calls for all steps and preparations in that regard to be stopped forthwith,” the group said
Speaking further, the group stated that the recent apology by the President, toward those he might have wronged, was short of statesmanship, noting that every Nigerian deserves an apology from the president, considering the trauma, everyone has passed through. pardo
According to the group, Nigerians have been traumatized, especially by the pervasive insecurity, and “marooned in an economic quagmire that, in the last 8 years, has rendered life most uninspiring, nasty, brutish, and short.”
“It is rather shameful and painful that the President would celebrate, as an achievement, the purported containment of insecurity in Abuja, where the sovereignty of the nation has been wantonly challenged by terrorists routinely routing the presidential convoy, correctional centers attacked and emptied, and some local governments in neighboring Niger State in effective occupation by Boko Haram,” the group stated.
The group added that “the President’s lamentations of his serial loss of elections until God sent technology to my rescue through the introduction of the PVC,” stressing that “it is rather more lamentable that the manifest desires of Buhari to improve on the efficacy of the technological processes, inherited from Jonathan, by assenting the 2022 Electoral Act with the BVAS and IREV components, were thwarted by the INEC and security agencies under his watch.”
However, Afenifere appealed to the judiciary, to ensure that “all petitions in respect of the presidential election, be justly resolved before the end of the current administration of President Buhari, as the only way the confidence of Nigerians in its intervention may be earned.”
However, it restated its position “that the emergence of a President of Southern, and specifically South Eastern origin will guarantee equity, fairness, and peaceful corporate existence of the Nigerian federation, for which we continue to support the victory of Peter Obi of the Labour Party in the February 25th Presidential election and all his endeavors in its realization.”