A co-convener of the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group, Aisha Yesufu, has made a strong call to President Muhammadu Buhari to resign on health grounds in order to free the country from the inertia his situation has brought upon it..
For Yesufu, Nigeria is more than any individual. She advised the National Assembly to impeach the president if he fails to step down.
“We need to take our country back, let the president resign, if he can’t resign, let the National Assembly do the right thing and let’s have another president. It is not about President Buhari, it’s about Nigeria, and right now Nigeria is suffering and we cannot continue to allow this,” Ms. Yesufu said in a two-minute, 20 seconds video posted on her Twitter account on Friday morning.
Since the beginning of the year, governance has suffered in the country with the President unable to discharge his basic duties as a result of illness that kept him away for 50 days up to March.
Beside that, since his return little has been seen of him in the public before he eventually the country again leaving no idea when he will be back.
A member of the House of Representatives, and Mr. Buhari’s ruling All Progressives Congress, Abdulmumini Jibrin, had advised the president to resign, saying his ill health had badly affected governance.
It is remarkable that most of the calls for his resignation is coming from the strong voices from the North, the President’s regions.
Calls from people from the South would have been misinterpreted in a politically dichotomous country like Nigeria.
Ms. Yesufu said in the video that the idea of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo acting as president is not working and that governance is stagnated in the country.
She called on Nigerians to “wake up”, saying the acting president cannot do much because he wants to be seen as a good man.
“The fact that he is sick doesn’t mean he is going to die today or tomorrow. Somebody that is as healthy as I am now can drop dead. It is life!
“How long are we going to wait and keep watching everything go in disarray? Who is going to sign the budget, we don’t know. The report on Babachir, what is happening to it? Why are we being held to ransom?” she said.
Addressing the president directly, Ms. Yesufu said: “President Muhammadu Buhari, you have gotten the best in this world. A lot of things that you have, most people cannot even dream of.
“You have been president twice, you said it yourself, you have reached the peak of your career as a military man and as a politician.
“Can you allow each and every one of us as Nigerians be able to reach the peak of our careers? Can you just take some time off, take care of yourself? May God give you good health.”
A political analyst who would not want to be named said that people like Yesufu who rise above ethnic, religious sentiments in crucial moments like the country is facing gives hope about Nigeria as a country.
