Following recent killings in Benue State by suspected herdsmen, a chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Sunny Onuesoke had said that if nothing is done to stop these killings Nigeria will be moving fast towards anarchy.
He therefore tasked President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately fish out the perpetrators and prevent the country from experiencing the type of genocide Rwanda experienced some time ago.
Onuesoke who was reacting to the killings of Wednesday where about 39 people were gruesomely killed by men suspected to be Fulani herdsmen in Benue state, said since President Buhari had admitted that the Fulani herdsmen were trained by Libyans, he should fish them out without delay.
Onuesoke, also the Senior Special Assistant on Special Duties to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, said that he believes there is a conspiracy of silence within the leadership circle, adding that this has made the killings in Benue state to go beyond human comprehension.
He said, “This issue of Benue killings is beyond human comprehension. We are living in a country where there is a general conspiracy of silence by those that are responsible for securing our country and our citizens. We have a social contract with the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC government. What is this social contract? We have given the contract of protecting our country and lives to the government in power. But what we are seeing today is that we have voted a monster in the saddles of power and we have put our security in the hands of killers.
“They have generally ethnicised, regionalized and tribalized our security as a nation. This is exactly what I mean by conspiracy is silence. If Nigeria does not move fast to stop these killings, I am afraid we are dragging very fast in a very tight rope to a genocidal jungle like what happened in Rwanda.
“If the President can come out and say these people that are killing us come Libya, then it means he knows these people. So why does he not deploy his security apparatus to get these killers. Take for example when the famous Anini was terrorizing the people. Babangida, the then military head of state gave an order, and immediately Anini was caught. You brought in a lot of tag names like Operation Crocodile Smile in the South South, Operation python dance in the east, and you had results. So what happened to the operation cat walk you brought to the North?
“A situation whereby you sectionalize the defense of this country in one religion, ethnic stock and one part of the country, is this not a conspiracy in appointment? Nobody is going to tell me that we are running very fast in tight rope to anarchy. We are in a country whereby people are been killed in Benue in the past seven days and the presidency is concerned about the recall of Dino Melaye.
“Buhari took the issue of Melaye recall more important than the killings going on in Benue. He pursue this with so much vigor that even the Inspector General of Police refused to pick the call of the Senate President. This is ridiculous and an international embarrassment. You went out of the shores of this country seeking for investors to come and invest here, yet you are busy tracking down a senator of the federal republic of Nigeria in the full glare of the international community. Tell me, what is the guarantee of the man’s investment in Nigeria? You can as well stand up one day and say, ‘hey close that factory.’
“There is no social contract between Nigerians, not to talk of bilateral contract with foreign investors. It is not going to work out. Nigerians have been victimized and the leadership, including the governors, have refused to stump there feet on the ground to say no. The senators and the leadership of this country have embarked in a conspiracy of silence because of their selfish interest, so they refuse to utter a word. I rest my case. The military has failed us.
