By Uche Amunike
President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech at the just concluded 76th United Nations General Assembly, UNGA, in New York-USA, Friday has raised a lot of controversy both in Nigeria and the diaspora.
In his speech, Buhari discussed the crisis currently being experienced in the country as he addressed the world leaders.
He told the United Nations about Nigeria’s struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic and said that his administration built hospitals across Nigeria to fight the spread of the scourge which globally affected countries around the world in 2020.
He admitted to building isolation centres and emergency hospital wards in record time, all across Nigeria. He also attested to carrying out genomic sequencing in special laboratories across the country to detect variants in circulation.
On the problem of security that presently unsettles the entire nation, he claimed that his government was handling the menace of terrorism and banditry currently bedeviling the northern parts of the country.
He claimed that the country has left no stones unturned in tackling the challenges of terrorism caused by the activities of Boko Haram in the North Eastern part of Nigeria and the Lake Chad region, including the banditry in the Northwest and North-central Nigeria.
According to his submission to the Assembly, Nigerian security forces have recorded considerable success in the fight against terrorism. He also claimed that many terrorist fighters where voluntarily surrendering to the Nigerian security forces because of the renewed vigour of the Nigerian military.
Even though there has been complaints in Nigeria about his excessive loan requests in the last few years, President Buhari, during his speech begged rich nations and international financial institutions for outright debt cancellation for all countries that were facing financial crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
He pointedly said that the G20 countries should endeavour to extend their debt suspension initiatives to all developing countries presently going through fiscal and liquidity challenges.
His speech, however, was met with backlash from concerned Nigerians as some accused him of digressing from the security and economic reality of the country.
On his part, the National Coordinator of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko said that the president’s speech lacked truth. He admitted that even though their organization will not want to bandy words with the president concerning his opinion about certain improvements in the security situation across board, they humbly disagreed with him on the grounds that insecurity didn’t necessarily connote physical violence, but rather, the greatest kind of insecurity is economic security as it usually gives rise to other areas of security challenges like that of lives and property.
He charged Buhari to tell Nigerians how many suspected murderers and terrorists have been arrested and how many of the herdsmen of the Fulani tribe has been jailed so far.
Relatively, the Nigerian representative at the African Youth Union Commission, AYUC, Aina Segun Aina in a recent interview said that Nigerians expected Buhari to solicit for help from world leaders, since he has failed in tackling the security challenges in the country, saying that the world cannot afford a humanitarian crisis of 200 million people today and therefore must be drafted into the general situation in Nigeria in terms of sophisticated security, technology and intelligence gathering, which includes economic and social development generally.
Buhari’s speech came when some activists, especially the Yoruba Nation’s agitator and other activists, led by former Presidential Aide, Reno Omokri stormed the Abuja House in New York to protest bad governance in Nigeria.
During Buhari’s speech, pro and anti-Buhari protesters continually protested and eventually clashed even though the whole world was watching and world leaders, present.
Aina hoped Buhari and his government would learn from the experience and do the right thing.
