At a meeting with officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) early this week, Nigeria\u2019s President, Muhammadu Buhari spoke in anger against those he described as \u201cmisbehaving\u201d in certain parts of the country, apparently referring to separatist groups in the South East of Nigeria. The President in his remarks said: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAm I not leading the country according to the Constitution? What do <\/em> \u201cNow for those of us who were unfortunately in the field for more than <\/em> The President\u2019s remarks have\ncome as a shock to many Nigerians who worry that the language and words used\nevoke very strong sentiments amongst the people of the South East, who went\nthrough a harrowing, brutal civil war experience that led to the killing of\nmore than three million people of the region. These memories have remained and\nmanifested in what the people of the South East believe is the unfair treatment\nthey continue to receive from the Nigerian State. Indeed, the people of the\nSouth East have repeatedly complained of marginalisation in proportions never\nbefore seen since Buhari came to power in 2015. They complain that Buhari\u2019s\ngovernment has embarked on policies that seek to further remove them from\nparticipation in national politics and economy. The President\u2019s statement is also\ncoming against the background of the recent statement and order given by the\nnewly appointed Acting Inspector General of Police, IGP Usman Alkali Baba, for\npolice personnel on operations to deal ruthlessly with criminal elements in the\nSouth East. According to the Acting IGP, \u201c\u2026Don\u2019t sit down and even defend\nyour formations, your places of work. Go out and look for them as they are\nlooking for you and deal with them ruthlessly.<\/em>\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n No doubt, the security\nsituation in the South East has deteriorated in recent months, with public\nassets and infrastructure burnt and damaged. Several police stations and\noffices of INEC in Imo, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Abia and Akwa Ibom States have\nbeen attacked. These criminal activities have been described as such by several\nindividuals and organisations, with a call on persons responsible to desist\nfrom their condemnable acts. Citizens and organisations have also condemned\nthese destructive activities and called on security agencies to investigate and\napprehend those responsible for them, in order to ensure that copycat criminals\ndo not spread these anarchist activities across the country. This call on\nsecurity agencies to act, also insists that this must be within the remits of\nhuman rights and the rule of law. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At a meeting with officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) early this week, Nigeria\u2019s President, Muhammadu Buhari spoke in anger against those he described as \u201cmisbehaving\u201d in certain parts of the country, apparently referring to separatist groups in the South East of Nigeria. The President in his remarks said: \u201cAm I not leading […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[347,349],"class_list":["post-2128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-buharis-threat-to-deal-with-agitators-in-the-south-east-in-the-language-they-understand","tag-shocking-critics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2128"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2139,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128\/revisions\/2139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
they want? So whoever wanted diversion or destruction of the system <\/em>
at this point, I think they will soon have the shock of their lives. I think <\/em>
we have given them enough latitude. They have made their case. They <\/em>
just wanted to destroy the country. Because, what do they want? We are<\/em>
concentrating on infrastructure because no country or institution can <\/em>
develop without infrastructure.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
30 months of the civil war, to see the carnage of how we killed <\/em>
ourselves, at least a million people. I think those who are misbehaving, <\/em>
you are either too young, they did not know what happened but for<\/em>
those of us who went through all these things\u2026 we can\u2019t understand, so <\/em>
we will treat them in the language they understand. \u2026so we are going to <\/em>
be very hard sooner than later\u2026<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n