General Muhammadu Buhari, has for > the second time in one week challenged President Goodluck Jonathan to arrest him if he could

by AIDOGHIE PAULINUS


Buhari’s daring statement came even as leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Alhaji Mujaheed Dokubo-Asari, called for his arrest and prosecution over the riots that claimed lives and property in the North.

Dokubo said: “People like Buhari should not be allowed to be moving freely after that carnage. They should be brought to book to show they are not above the law. The President must assert his power and arrest the man. Nothing will happen. I repeat, nothing will happen.”

The President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, made a similar call fror Buhari’s arrest last Sunday.
Speaking through his spokesman, Mr Yinka Odumakin, Buhari said after all the killings and bombings the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) claimed responsibility for, it took the intervention of a Nobel Laureate to negotiate for them before the President of Nigeria.

“Now, a man for which no crime has been established against, they want him arrested. So, for the last time again, we dare them. Let them go and arrest him,” Odumakin said. He further said that Dokubo-Asari’s call was not surprising as it confirmed the plan for secession of the Ijaw nation.“When there was bomb blast in Abuja on October 1, 2010, MEND claimed responsibility, but the Commander-in-Chief absolved MEND and said he knows those who carried out the bombing. Till date he has not told the nation who those bombers are. Now a man who has condemned violence, who has condemned the killings and went on air to condemn the unfortunate incidents, they are calling for his arrest.

“Nigeria should be aware that there is a small group in this country today that is bent on breaking up this country and they want to use the office of the President of Nigeria, which they have captured by hook or crook, and their antics should be noticed by the Nigerian people.” Responding to the violence that trailed the presidential election, former Deputy Senate President in the botched Third Republic, Albert Legogie, said Nigerian leaders should be held responsible instead of individuals.

According to Legogie, those involved in the violence were mainly street urchins, adding that the violence was unnecessary since it was the best thing that happened to Nigeria since the June 12 presidential election.“I am of the opinion that the violence that followed the presidential election was unnecessary and uncalled for in the sense that the election was reasonably credible, transparent, free and fair. I think it is probably the best we have had in the country since the presidential election of 1992. So, when people started fighting and killing themselves over it, I felt very disappointed.
“I think Nigerians should learn to accommodate themselves; accommodate other people’s religion, other people’s differences and we should learn to live together as members of one big family.

“If you go back again, you find that we still have to hold our leaders responsible for the violence, in the sense that most of these people who sped into the streets and started maiming and killing people are urchins. People that have no homes, people that have no jobs.“They are street urchins. If we had created jobs for these people, if we had created welfare facility for these people, if we had accommodated them in our system, they would not have gone the way they went.

“I listened to a friend who told me that most of them would say oh, look at this one, he is very well-fed, he must look like a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) man. Anybody that was well-fed was a PDP man and they descended on the person.
“So, one of the challenges the President should face right now is to create massive job opportunity for the large number of youths roaming the streets of this country. We can no longer defend it and unless we do it now, we are heading for a major disaster. The killings were just a warning,” the Edo State-born Legogie said.