President Muhammadu Buhari has described as unfair the comment by the
Catholic Bishop of Yola Diocese, Rt. Rev. Fr. Stephen Mamza that he was
“sleeping on duty as Commander-in-Chief.”
Buhari spoke through Malam Garba Shehu, the President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity.
The presidential aide observed that it was unbecoming of a religious
leader, like Mamza, to engage ”in an action that broke the old tradition
of staying above politics”.
He said: ”In an action that broke the old tradition of staying above
politics, the Catholic Bishop of Yola Diocese, Rt. Rev. Fr. Stephen
Mamza delivered a homily in which he spoke angrily against President
Muhammadu Buhari, whom he described as ‘sleeping on duty as
Commander-in-Chief.’
”This is not a fair comment.
”There is so much that has changed in the past three to four years in
and around Yola, and the Catholic Church in particular that a true
assessment would show that but for the Change Administration of
President Buhari, things would have continued the way they were, or even
get worse. These could not have happened if a Commander-in- Chief was
asleep.”
Shehu, however, noted that Mamza was part of the success story
recorded by the Buhari administration in Northeast, especially in
Adamawa.
”Bishop Mamza was, and is still a strong member of the Adamawa Peace
Initiative (API), composed of religious and community leaders which did
the lovely work housing and feeding 400,000 displaced people from
Northern Adamawa and Borno States in 2015.
”The API also did the extraordinary work of easing tensions between
Muslims and Christians during that period and ensured that both groups
did not turn on one another based on suspicion.
”As widely reported by the local and international press, in the
premises of St. Theresa’s Cathedral where Rev. Mamza ministered, there
were more than 1,500 IDPs, mostly women and children on whom the church
administered food rations and issued bags of maize, cooking oil and
seasoning.
”We are truly touched and very grateful for the work that the Bishop and the others had done in that difficult period,” he said.
The presidential spokesman maintained that as ”the Boko Haram has
been degraded, the more than 400,000 displaced people absorbed by the
Adamawa community have all gone back to Borno State and to those council
areas in northern Adamawa.
”In addition to the capital,Yola, the towns of Michika, Madagali and
Mubi which had been occupied by Boko Haram during their military
advances have since been retaken by the Nigerian military”.
According to him, the military personnel are also clearing litters of
Boko Haram’s carnage and are, through the support of the administration
as well as local and international partners, rebuilding roads and
bridges, power lines, burnt schools, markets, destroyed churches and
mosques.
”Without an iota of doubt, the Northeast is better off with President Buhari than it was under the previous administration.
”That should explain the massive turnout of voters in the region, in
spite of threats to life and property, to vote for the return of the
President for a Second Term of four years.
”Sadly, one of the realities of today’s Nigeria is that it easy to
blame President Buhari for the violence all around us,” he added
Shehu condemned situations were community leaders were ”too scared to
blame the warlords and the sponsors of killings” because they fear for
their own lives.
He said: ”What is happening in several communities racked by
inter-ethnic and religious violence is arising from the refusal of
community leaders to point at known criminals in their midst for the law
enforcement agencies to act against them.
”They rather blame President Buhari for their woes.
”It is indeed an irony that in the week that Bishop Mamza was
speaking, another Bishop with a known commitment to peace, and results
to show for his work in neighbouring Plateau State, is being dispatched
to go to Taraba, Adamawa and Benue to work in collaboration with
security agencies in mending broken inter-communal relationships.”
While sympathising with families of those who lost loved ones as well
as those injured, Shehu said this senseless violence could never be
condoned by the Buhari administration.
He added that the administration’s intense security efforts and peace
building would not only continue, ”but will expand in response to such
explosions of violence in the country.”
