You Can’t Impose State Of Emergency On S/East, Ohanaeze Warns Buratai

The Ohanaeze Ndigbo says the chief of army staff, Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai, lacks the constitutional powers to impose a state of emergency on the Southeast. This followed an alleged statement credited to Gen Buratai threatening to impose a state of emergency on the region as a result of the recent clash between security operatives and members of the Indigenous People of Biafra on August 23, 2020. THE WHISTLER had reported that some undisclosed numbers of lives were lost during the skirmishes, including two operatives of the Department of Security Service.

Reacting to the threat, Ohanaeze, through a statement issued by its acting national secretary and publicity secretary, Prince Uche Achi-Okpaga, interrogated the powers of the army chief to declare a state of emergency in any state of the federation. The organization further regretted that Gen Buratai had failed to impose such emergencies on some troubled states in the north.

According to the statement, “While Ohanaeze Ndigbo decries violence in any form in the states, it takes particular exception to an open threat and warning to Southeast governors, who, by the country’s constitution, are chief security officers of their states, but are lame ducks in practice as all security commands come from Abuja.

“Ohanaeze Ndigbo finds it particularly provocative for General Buratai to issue such a warning to governors of the Southeast where relative peace prevails while he has not done the same in the Northcentral, Northwest and Northeast, which have become theatres of war, and where army posts and bases have been subjected to incessant attacks by the Boko Haram, ISWA/ISIS, bandits and Fulani herdsmen, killing and maiming Nigerian soldiers. Ohanaeze Ndigbo also wonders where the army chief derives the power to issue such a threat which under the country’s constitution can only be carried out by the National Assembly on demand by the president.”

The group further expressed that, “It is highly surprising that an army chief who was watching as the governor of Katsina State was negotiating and taking pictures with armed bandits would turn around to threaten to impose a state of emergency in states where unarmed citizens are agitating against the harsh and inhuman conditions they have been subjected to by their country.

“Ohanaeze Ndigbo believes that the threat by General Buratai is a vindication of the belief that the Southeast is being regarded as a conquered territory, exemplified in the army of occupation stationed in the area. It is also a glaring example of the reckless impunity of public officers and a tacit manifestation of the vacuum in governance at the federal level.”