‘Buhari Is Not God’ – Former Borno Governor Asks President To Address Failings

Former Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima, has said that contrary to the perception that northern leaders lacked the courage to “speak truth” to President Muhammadu Buhari about worsening insecurity in the region, the region’s leaders were rather being tactful in addressing the security challenge.

Shettima said even though northern leaders respect and cherish President Buhari, they would not worship him because he “is not God”.

The former governor and current senator representing Borno central senatorial district stated this during a live Arise TV interview monitored by THE WHISTLER on Monday.

According to Shettima, the northern leaders would not hesitate to point out Buhari’s mistakes to him whenever he went wrong because they owed it a responsibility to their people who voted them into office.

The senator said these when he was asked if he agreed with his successor, Governor Babagana Zulum, that insecurity had improved in the north since President Buhari took over power in 2015.

He said, “The position of my governor…people have to take it in its proper perspective. The governor is the leader of the state and he had to take a whole lot of factors into consideration before taking an informed decision. He has an option of dancing to the tune of the social media pundits. He can insult the federal government and person of President Muhammadu Buhari, but where that would lead him to only God knows.”

“As I said earlier, the [Buhari] government did its best in the first two years to really degrade the Boko Haram forces, but they have been on a strong resurgence and the governor has never denied that fact.

“The North East Development Commission came into being under the tutelage of President Muhammadu Buhari and there are so many gains that were recorded under the president dispensation, including the return of our people to Bama, Goza, Damasak, Baga and now to Marke. But you know it’s not for the governor take a whole side position. He has access to the president. The same social media pundits that were hailing him when he had an altercation with the military some few months back, are the same people that are castigating him now. But he is the leader of the state. He has to take an informed, moderate position that would not rock the boat.”

Shettima said unlike his own tenure when he didn’t have a good rapport with the then President Goodluck Jonathan, his successor has the president’s listening ears and would not want to jeopardize the ongoing counter-terrorism war in Borno by starting a fight with the president.

“If you juxtapose my own position with the Jonathan administration and the current, [you will see that] He has the listening ears of the president, he has the empathy of the president and he has the support of the president. He cannot afford to throw all these away into the ocean. This is fundamental [because] he is a leader and not a social media pundit for God’s sakes. People should look at things from a wider perspective, not from the narrow prism that why is the governor commending Buhari. It goes beyond that, it has to do with lives of six million people, not twenty thousand Twitter warriors.”

Shettima stressed that the first two years of President Buhari recorded successes in the area of counter-insurgency war, but noted that things were gradually, “backsliding into the former state of affairs”

He said, “In all fairness to Muhammadu Buhari, we are not questioning him, we are not questioning his commitment to the cause of our people, we’re not questioning his passion for restoring peace in the northeast. We respect him. We cherish him. We love him, but don’t deify him because deification is [for] God. Buhari is not God. If there are things that needs to be corrected, we are going to point it out to him and equivocally and unambiguously, but without playing to the gallery.

“We witnessed a sea change in our fortunes in the first two years of the Buhari administration, [but] things are backsliding into the former state of affairs and I moved a motion in the senate advocating for far reaching changes, but the governor took a holistic perspective of the whole issue because the security challenges needs to be addressed from an economic front, from a military angle as well as from a social perspective. And this is why he said, yes, the federal government its best, but a lot still needs to be done.”

The senator urged President Buhari to listen to the yearnings of those calling for the sacking of the current Service Chiefs, nothing that, “there is the need for injection of people with new ideas with fresher perspectives to come and address the issues. By June next year, course 35 are going without reaching the pinnacle of their careers. So, justice, equity and fairness, even common sense, demands that these service chiefs should go and we will continue to emphasize that we are part of this government. We brought government into being, and we have a moral responsibility to tell truth to power when needs be.”