Turaki blames upsurge of insurgency on FG’s neglect

A former Minister of Special Duties and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, presidential aspirant, Alhaji Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, SAN, has blamed the recent upsurge in the activities of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Boko -Haram and Niger Delta militants on neglect by President Muhammadu Buhari.


The presidential aspirant who address party delegates at Edo State PDP secretariat, ahead of the September 2018 convention, stressed the need to restructure the country, over 50 years after the nation attain independence from Britain in 1960.

He lamented that whatever efforts made by former President Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan through the amnesty programme was rubbished by Buhari, who declared as soon as he was sworn in that he was going to place emphasis on areas where he got the highest number of votes.

He told the PDP supporters which included party chairman, Chief Dan Orbih, the party’s governorship candidate in the 2016 election, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu and a host of others that Buhari’s actions and utterances had only succeeded in further dividing the country.

He said: “This government is very divisive. The president said that he will only give 5% to those who gave him 5% vote and 97% to those who gave him 97% vote. I have never seen that kind of government and that is the reason for the upsurge in the activities of the MASSOB, IPOB and the Niger Delta ex-militants.

“It calls for concern that Niger Delta ex-militants from whose land so much of the nation’s wealth is derived have been abandoned by the federal government. The ex-militants and the separatists only regrouped out of frustration as a result of government’s deliberate policy of neglect.”

Turaki denied joining the bandwagon of aspirants clamouring for restructuring, noting that he had always been an apostle of a restructured Nigeria where peace and justice reigns no matter the difference in tongue and tribe.

He said that it will be unfair for the Northern part of the country to hold back genuine agitators from the South who may for instance want state police and local government areas.
Turaki added: “In 22, out of the 36 states, the police can no longer maintain law and order. Why not allow state police? It is not fair for the Northern part of the country to stop the people of the South from restructuring the country.”

He slammed Buhari for leading the country to the present economic downturn unlike the PDP which positioned Nigeria as the largest economy in Africa, adding that by not having an economic policy and an economic adviser, he has clearly demonstrated that he lacked the capacity to rule the country.