UK GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER: Buhari your time is up

A major British newspaper has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to recognize he has failed to live up to his pledge to destroy Boko Haram.

Writing for the Guardian (UK), journalist Simon Tisdall says President Buhari has completely failed in his campaign to destroy the Islamist terror group.

Tisdall argues that far from making Nigeria safer, the president’s policies have created more instability throughout the country.

"President Muhammadu Buhari was elected through a hard line security manifesto but his harsh approach to unrest of any kind may be causing more problems than it solves across Nigeria as a whole,” he said.

The journalist points out that since Buhari became president last year agitation for the actualization of Biafra has increased in the southeast, as has violence between farmers and Fulani cattle herders in the middle belt.

He quotes the International Crisis Group’s analyst for Nigeria Nnamdi Obasi as saying that President Buhari’s hard line policy will also lead to further strife in the Niger Delta region after recent attacks by the Niger Delta Avengers and Egbesu Mightier Fraternity.

However since Buhari’s election, violence in Niger Delta and other parts of Nigeria has increased. “Both groups have sent the government their lists of demands, mostly for local control of oil revenues, threatening even more crippling attacks if they are ignored,” Obasi said.

“The government’s response, deploying more military assets and threatening an unmitigated crackdown, portends an escalation of the violence.”

Tisdall also accuses President Buhari of using the Chibok girls as a political ploy, referring to the president meeting the rescued Chibok girl Amina Ali Darsha Knkeki at his villa last month.
“The fuss looked like a slightly desperate bid to deflect attention from the fact the other girls remain unaccounted for,” Tisdall said.