President of Initiative for Better and Brighter Nigeria (IBBN), Prophet Isah El- Buba Sadiq, has urged the Buhari-led government to be more innovative in its approach to securing the lives of Nigerians.
In a speech on Tuesday, Dr. Sadiq while saluting the gallantry of men of the Armed Forces, said policymakers and the Federal Government must be more “proactive in securing the precious lives of and defending the inalienable right to life of Nigerians”.
According to the cleric, Nigeria must secure its forests, else, terrorist elements will always take refuge in those forests and use them as a launching board for their terrorist attacks.
Speaking further, the prophet stressed that there is a need to reclaim forests and ungoverned spaces already occupied by terrorists, adding that there is no better time for the deployment of the much-celebrated Tucano Jets and other Air Force platforms procured to extinguish the insurgents.
The IBBN President also asserted that the expedience of experimenting with state police to complement the overstretched central Nigerian Police Force stares Nigeria in the face at this time in her national history.
He said the IBBN salutes the gallantry of men of the Armed Forces, adding that even as the group continues to stand with the soldiers, the IBBN is more than confident and hopeful that Nigeria will surmount her security challenges.
Below is a full text of the speech as delivered by Dr Isah El- Buba Sadiq on Tuesday.
Text Of Speech Of The World Press Conference On State Of The Nation And Way Forward Been Adressed By The Initiative For A Better And Brighter Nigeria (Ibbn) On The 8th Of February 2022 At The Ekiti Meeting Room, Nicon Luxury Hotel Abuja.
Members of the fourth estate, I welcome you all to this auspicious press conference of the Initiative for a Better and Brighter Nigeria (IBBN) on the state and way forward of the Nigerian Nation.
As you are aware, there’s a new tribe emerging in Nigeria- a breed without greed who are pressing for a New Nation for every Nigerian, a truly well democratically governed Nigeria under God.
This New tribe is IBBN and indeed We are the IBBN. I enjoin all of you to join us, so together we can take back Nigeria and put it in its rightful place of pride in the comity of Nations.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the press, we have asked you to join us here today to in line with the mandate of IBBN, bare our mind on the state of our Nation, today!
As I welcome us to this press conference, I need not remind us all of our current sad security reality in Nigeria- where terrorists elements are capitalising on loopholes in the nation’s overstretched security architecture to unleash terror attacks on helpless Nigerians across rural communities across states of the nation where there is certainly minimal or no reach of security.
We need not recount those depressing everyday incidents report and statistics here. We also need not reiterate that the number of men and Officers of security agencies are obviously inadequate to secure our rural communities and forests- which needs security as well.
It’s obvious that if we don’t secure forests in Nigeria, terrorist elements will always take refuge in those forests and use them as a launching board for their terrorist attacks.
Government is not oblivious of this, because we have adequate security deployments securing the forest within the villa area through Mambila Barracks, through the Gwarinpa expressway and down to the AYA area here in the nation’s capital.
Again, the experience of experimenting with state police to complement the overstretched central Nigerian Police Force stares us in the face at this time of our national history. Beyond preventing deepening attacks, we need to reclaim forests and ungoverned spaces already occupied by terrorists, when will we deploy the much-celebrated Tucano jets and other Air Force platforms procured to extinguish these terrorists?
It better not be when the terrorists are done with killing Nigerians. We call on Government to Deploy those Tucano jets to use, now!
The Initiative for a Better and Brighter Nigeria salutes the gallantry of Men of our Armed Forces, we continue to stand with them and we are even more than confident and hopeful that Nigeria will surmount her security challenges, we, however, call on Nigeria policymakers and President Muhammadu Buhari’s led Federal Government to be more innovative and proactive in securing the precious lives of and defending the inalienable right to life of Nigerians.
On the Abduction and Murder of Little Hanifa in Kano State:
From wave of mass abductions for ransom at schools over the last year, carried out by terrorist elements nicknamed bandits, to the recent abduction and murder of this little promising 5-year-old Hanifa Abubakar by the Proprietor of her own school who demanded a ransom of six million naira ($14,500) last month only to later kill Hanifa with rat poison and bury her in a shallow grave in the city of Kano; there couldn’t be more endangerment of education and violation of the right to life in Northern Nigeria.
Truth is, a society perpetually void of safe spaces for children is a society with a bleak future, if it has any at all. For the act of terrorism against children alone, Nigerian Government need not show mercy to domestic terrorists & terrorpreneurs alike.
We must stand up to the active defence of the right to life in Nigeria because the life of Nigerians matter!
May God comfort the family of little Hanifa and all others who have lost loved ones in the hands of terrorists and ‘terropreneurs’ in Nigeria.
Away from security, the Initiative for a Better and Brighter Nigeria aligns with Civil Society Coalition and well-meaning Nigerians in demanding from President Muhammadu Buhari a new progressive electoral act for Nigerians that will make our elections free, fair, transparent, peaceful and inclusive; especially that Mr President rode to the Presidency with a promise of electoral reforms to Nigerians.
While we commend the 9th National Assembly for their efforts in advancing progressive clauses in the Electoral Act Repeal and Re-enactment Bill 2020, the Initiative for a Better and Brighter Nigeria however wishes to call on the National Assembly to consider and review Section 91 of the Electoral Act Bill which dramatically and astronomically increased campaign spending limits by 300 percent- which suggests that the 9th National Assembly intends to entrench a heavily monetized and merchandizing political system- and this has dire implications for elections violence, youths exclusion, good governance and the economy.
Fellow Nigerians, still on our electoral process, recall that INEC in June last year expanded voter access to polling units for the first time in 25 years since the initial delimitation in 1996 by the creation of additional 56,872 Polling Units nationwide bringing the total number of polling units in the country to 176,846- a feat that should ordinarily improve voter turnout and ease the management of polling units and crowd during elections.
What we have, however, noticed from the recently concluded Anambra State elections and from the recent INEC Consultative meeting with Civil-society Organisations, is that both old and new voters are either not fully aware of this expansion of voter access and or failed to take advantage of it to transfer to these new Polling Units which has the potential to defeat the intended objective of the expansion and even entrench voter disenfranchisement.
The Initiative for a Better and Brighter Nigeria (IBBN), therefore, wishes to call on Nigerians, Civil Society Organisations and serious grassroots stakeholders and Politicians to take inventory of those new polling units in their constituencies, organise town halls, educate the people and facilitate the even distribution of voters in those areas between the old overpopulated polling units and the new polling units closest to the old ones by simply applying to transfer those affected voters’ polling units, as well as leveraging on the ongoing CVR for the regular recruitment and registration of new voters to locations where they would be during elections by visiting the INEC website. We all must turn to community organisers in our localities if we must make democracy work for Nigeria.
More still, as political activities hit the crescendo, we call on political actors in the country to play the game, putting Nigeria first over any parochial interest. Among other things, for the purpose of advancing equity and putting national interest first, we call on all Political parties to in all sense of fairness, zone their presidential tickets to the southern zone of the country, especially that the North will be concluding a full eight-year term by 2023.
Fairness and equity is all it takes to service and continue to make every union work and indeed fairness and equity is what it will take to keep the Nigerian union as one indivisible great country under God.
Thank you very much for your time and may God bless!
