The pan Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, yesterday asked the National Assembly to commence the impeachment process of President Muhammadu Buhari for spending $496 million for the purchase of 12 aircraft without budgetary approval.
Also the group, which met in the house of its leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti in Akure, the Ondo State capital, asked Buhari to resign his membership of Miyetti Allah or his position as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“Afenifere says that to resolve the conflicts of interest, the President must immediately renounce his status of Myeti Allah as their activities have threatened the performance of his duty to protect the lives and property of Nigerians. And if the President insist to continue to be patron of this terror group, then his continued being the President of Nigeria is untenable. Because there is conflict of interest,” the group said.
In a communiqué read by its spokesman, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, Afenifere expressed worry that the membership of Miyetti Allah by President Buhari has made it difficult for him to take drastic action against Fulani herdsmen that have turned Nigeria into a killing field.
According to him, Buhari has conflicting roles as the patron of Myetti Allah and the president of the country and should choose one in the interest of the country.
Flanked by leaders of the group, including Chief Korede Duyile, Mr. Sina Kawonise and Chief Femi Aluko, Odumakin said the President has flouted the constitution of the country by spending money without appropriation of the National Assembly.
Odumakin said: “The meeting frowned at the anticipatory approval and payment of the sum of $496 million to the United States government by President Buhari for the purchase of 12 A29 Super Tucano aircraft.
“It is disturbing that this act was carried out by the President who has now asked the National Assembly to include money he already spent in 2018 appropriation act under consideration.
“This is against section 83 of the 1999 constitution which says “no monies shall be withdrawn from any public funds of the federation other than the consolidated revenue of the federation, unless the issue of such monies has been authorised by an act of the National Assembly.”
“Since there was not act of National Assembly for this money, it is clear that the President’s action is a clear subversion of 1999 Constitution. It is an act of corruption and misappropriation of public funds and we call on the National Assembly to ensure that the full wrath of the law is brought to bear on this issue.
“This act of impunity is getting too much. The other day, it was $1 billion for Boko Haram, who else would know how much money that has been taken out of the system in this way?”
Afenifere said they were worried by the terror being perpetrated by the herdsmen in various communities across the country.
It said: “There is hardly any day now you open our newspapers without reading about scores of citizens who have been killed in cold blood by this terror group with our security agencies unwilling to act in the defence of the citizens.
“The fears that were raised by Lt. Gen. TY Danjuma that there is collusion between security forces and the killer herdsmen has become much more real by the declaration by the Emir of Nka in Zamfara over the killing of 26 people that ‘we noticed negligence of the security agencies because they came after the damage had been done and very too late’”.
Afenifere posited that there is possibility of a nexus between the indifference of the security forces to the killing in the country and the fact that the President has a conflict of interest in being the commander of armed forces and, at the same time, the grand patron of the Miyetti Allah, the umbrella body of herdsmen.
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