By Christiana Ekpa
The Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) at the weekend asked president Muhammadu Buhari to quickly declare a state of emergency on national security, saying the country has assumed a deplorable dimensions in which everything seems to have gone to the dogs.
Briefing journalists at the IPAC National Secretariat in Abuja, the national chairman of the Council, Leonard Nzenwa, said the present situation is deeply troubling and unacceptable, as Nigerians are waylaid daily on the highways and many are plucked out from their homes like chickens, just as farms are deserted, and herders on the prowl, just as there exist ethnic clashes of unimaginable proportion.
He said “unfortunately, from our last engagement till now, is exactly 114 days, and nothing has changed. Instead, we have witnessed growth of colony of Non-State Actors masquerading under different names and labels, unleashing mayhem on Nigerians; who have gone on wanton kidnapping, killing, maiming, abducting, destruction, and making the country generally unsafe for all of us.”
He said the most pathetic and soul-wrenching of it all is that the merchants of death have intensified effort to destroy the nation’s educational system by kidnapping and holding hostage young daughters and boys who are innocent and have not wronged them in any way.
Nzenwa said to descend this low to blackmail the people and the nation must not be allowed to continue, urging the Nigerian People and Government to rise up to stop this brigandage by forces whom he said are resolved to destroy the country.
He said “The Inter-Party Advisory Council, IPAC, the umbrella body of all political parties in Nigeria is worried with frightening dimension of insecurity in our great nation and CALLS on President Mohammedu Buhari, who is President and Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces to DECLARE A STATE OF EMERGENCY ON NATIONAL SECURITY.
“A deplorable situation where everything seems to have gone to the dogs is deeply troubling and unacceptable. Nigerians are waylaid daily on the high ways. Many are plucked out from their homes like chickens, farms are deserted, herders are on the prowl, and there exist ethnic clashes of unimaginable proportion.”
While capturing the consequences of this trend of kidnapping, banditry and other dimensions of insecurity if left unchecked, the IPAC boss said in harrowing situation as this, the economy naturally has shrunk, the polity has also contracted, and the politicians have become endangered species, and the political system, with its activities, might not endure uninterrupted.
To this end, IPAC called on the federal government to: “Open dialogue with credible and patriotic senior citizens, bodies and groupings that do not promote dismemberment of the nation and have not willfully killed any in the course of advancing their cause.
