President Muhammadu Buhari has taken a swipe at Senate President Bukola
Saraki in a recent letter to the top lawmaker on the lingering crisis in
Benue and other states in central Nigeria.
In the January 25
letter addressed to Mr. Saraki, Mr. Buhari enumerated the actions so far
taken by his government towards resolving the crisis that has left
hundreds dead within the past one month alone.
The president said
his government has taken a series of actions that included ordering
security chiefs to move to the epicentre of the crisis while senior
cabinet officials were asked to find political solutions where possible.
Mr.
Saraki had earlier last month led the Senate to reach a string of
strongly-worded resolutions about the crisis and the failings or
outright inability of the Buhari administration to forestall it.
The
lawmakers’ resolutions followed the spate of killings in Benue State,
including the January 1 suspected herdsmen rampage that left more than
70 villagers dead and the January 8 killings of police officers in the
state.
On Wednesday, Governor Samuel Ortom imposed a dusk-to-dawn
curfew following police’s confirmation that seven Fulani travellers had
been lynched and set alight in Gboko, an industrial town about 90
kilometres southeast of Makurdi, the state capital.
After listing
all his interventions, which ranged from a deployment of special forces
and a broad-based consultation with key parties to the violence, Mr.
Buhari said it was wrong for the Senate to accuse him of doing too
little about the crisis.
“To infer, therefore that nothing has
been done is incorrect,” Mr. Buhari told Mr. Saraki in the letter which
was read on the floor of the Senate Thursday. “The police are
strenuously working to apprehend the rest of the culprits of these
heartless killings.”
A spokesperson for Mr. Saraki, Yusuph Olaniyonu, declined comments about the president’s jab at his principal Thursday evening.
“There
is no question I can take on that,” Mr. Olaniyonu said. “The letter was
read on the floor of the Senate and the appropriate response has been
issued.”
The president first ordered the Inspector-General
Ibrahim Idris to move to Benue in the second week of January, a
directive he emphasised in his letter to Mr. Saraki.
“Furthermore,
I have instructed the Inspector General of Police to relocate to Benue
State, redeploy forces to the most sensitive areas.
“The Federal
Government is initiating additional measures to address these and other
security challenges, alleviate the consequences of these attacks and
forestall reoccurrence,” the president said.
Still, the president said, key elements of the Senate’s resolutions would be looked into for prompt action.
“The
Senate Resolutions itemised in your letter will be taken into
consideration and I am instructing all relevant MDAs to factor them in
their work,” the president said in the letter which was made available
to PREMIUM TIMES by presidential spokesperson Femi Adesina Thursday
afternoon.