Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the House of Representatives, has accused northern elders of being silent in the face of the insecurity in the region.
The speaker said while the elders in Borno and other northern states criticised former President Goodluck Jonathan over killings, they have kept mum under the current administration.
Dogara said this on Thursday while speaking at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaign in Nasarawa state.
He said the elders’ silence could be taken as “enabling the poor management of security in the country, especially in the north.”
“The 2019 general election is not about President Muhammadu Buhari, it’s not about Atiku Abubakar, but I said it is about you who are gathered here and it will be a referendum on insecurity and hunger in this land”, he said.
“On the issue of insecurity, all of us know what is happening in Borno and, unfortunately too, between Abuja and Kaduna, as well as in Zamfara, Katsina, Nassarawa, Benue, Plateau and even Sokoto states.
“The issue is this, when this thing was going on under Jonathan, we had Borno elders always speaking. Where are the Borno elders now? Where are the leaders of northern Nigeria now that this problem has become endemic? What are they saying now?
“Are we not guilty of what we allow? Are we not responsible for the killings by our failure to say that enough is enough and demand a of right that President Buhari puts an end to this or leave if he can’t?
“The truth is that if we don’t rise up to the endemic challenges now, sooner than later, if things continue this way, we are not going to have a country.”
The speaker also condemned “sycophants who elevate some public office holders to the status of God” and called on Nigerians to “rise up and rescue the country from the clutches of insecurity.”
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