Former presidential candidate, Obiageli Ezekwesili, has urged the leadership of the National Assembly to invite President Muhammadu Buhari to address the lawmakers and the Nigerian public on his administration’s strategies and account of efforts at containing the coronavirus pandemic and the global economic shock.
In a press statement made available to journalists on Friday through her spokesperson, Ozioma Ubabukoh, she stated that “at a time Nigeria is at war against a rapidly escalating pandemic of coronavirus and an increasingly distressed, deteriorating and declining economy, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, President Buhari, is missing in action.”
While posing questions about President Buhari’s whereabouts, Ezekwesili, who is also a co-convener of Bring Back Our Girls, declared, “Fellow citizens, it is grossly irresponsible of Nigeria President, General Muhammadu Buhari, to hide away from addressing and assuring his citizens at a time like this when leaders of other nations are doing much more.”
The former education minister maintained that “it is grossly incompetent of the president that he moves around ‘majoring in the minors of declaring events open’, while his citizens are panicked about the fast accelerating health and economic crises.”
She added, “As a citizen of this country, I demand that the National Assembly, the leaderships of the Senate and the House of Representatives, must in exercise of their oversight role, immediately invite President Buhari to render account and plans of his stewardship on the pandemic and economic wars the country is thrown into. Do this now.”
Ezekwesili said the National Assembly must act swiftly to wake up the Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria to provide the constitutional leadership he swore to provide, especially when the country faces any kind of war.
She said, “NASS must quickly avert any repeat of President Buhari’s lax counter-terrorism war that has cost the country too many lives. A contagion from deadly #coronavirus must be avoided immediately. NOW! Nigeria simply cannot afford the implications of an exponential increase in the number of citizens infected by #coronavirus. It is insensitive of the president to be mute at a time like this.
“That @followlasg published that it is already contact-tracing 1,300 Nigerians in one way or the other linked to confirm cases of the disease should worry us.
“Let President Buhari come out of his self-isolation and lead his country and people to win these wars. The economic impact of the health crisis will be severe on our majority’s extremely poor of more than 93 million. President Buhari must be reminded that leadership is not about personal comfort.”
Ezekwesili, who is a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow, noted that Nigeria needed nothing less than “evident effective leadership now.”