Northern CSOs want Service Chiefs sacked over rising insecurity 

The federal government of Nigeria led by President Muhammadu Buhari has been urged to sack Service Chiefs, for their inability to end incessant killings in the country.

The call was made on Monday in a statement jointly signed by the leadership of a group of nine Civil Society Organizations, CSOs, in the North, jointly known as the Coalition Against Killings in Northern Nigeria (CAKIN).

CAKIN in the statement jointly signed by Isa Abubakar of the Northern Youth Council of Nigeria, Yerima Shettima of Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, Yusuf idris Amoke of Northern Anti Corruption Front, Mohammed Salihu Danlami of Arewa Youth Assembly and Murtala Abubakar of Joint Action Committee of Northern Youth Associations, unequivocally, called on President Buhari to immediately relieve the service chiefs of their duties.

According to the CSOs, “it is on a sad note that this Coalition wishes to remind the Federal Government and Government at all levels, that the primary responsibility of government anywhere particularly the one that was democratically elected by voters is to protect the lives and property of citizens.”

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“Recall that, Nigerians particularly Northerners voted President Muhammad Buhari enmass to power in 2015 in anticipations that as a former military head of state, and a retire General he is positioned to deal decisively with all forms of threats to the security of our people, particularly challenges of Boko Haram that had caused hardship and unprecedented destruction of lives and economy activities.

“Alas, five years into President Muhammad Buhari’s tenure instead of reducing insecurity, it has escalated thereby exposing great numbers of our people to avoidable deaths and loss of property in a manner that history has never witnessed before”.

They said as patriotic citizens, “it is our constitutional duty to raise voices and call attention to the killings that are taking place across States of the Northern regions on a daily basis and mobilize citizens on how to constructively engage government at all levels and make demands to end the killings.

“The coalition is saying enough is enough and an end must be put to the mindless killings of our people particularly in the villages, and the nonchalant attitude displayed by the government and its agencies to the plights of people going through horrific experience in the hands of criminals that seems to have overwhelmed our security agencies.

“The coalition strongly supports the idea of community policing and calls for its immediate implementation nationwide.

“The coalition reiterates here that enough is enough and it can no longer tolerate mindless killings of innocent citizens of northern Nigeria without the government seeming to be doing much to stop it. The Coalition from today June, 15th 2020 give a 14 day ultimatum to the federal government to end killings in the entire States of the north. After the expiration of this ultimatum, any reported case of killings will leave the coalition with no option than to mobilize citizens to take to streets until the government is completely shot down,” the statement by the groups concluded.

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