By PDP Integrity Vanguard
(Press Statement) We are constrained to remind the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Muhammadu Buhari that after he toppled the democratically elected government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari in 1984, he went on to appoint a 19 member Supreme Military Council (SMC) to help him pilot his blind military agenda.
We note that in making his appointment, Buhari made sure that 11 of the officers in the SMC were from northern Nigeria, to further confirm his known poor sense of fairness.
Himself, Maj. Gen Ibrahim Babangida, Maj. Gen Tunde Idiagbon, Maj. Gen Sani Abacha, Maj. Gen M. Maigoro, Air Vice Marshal M Ibrahim Alfa, Maj. Gen Gado Nasko, Maj. Gen Mamman Vatsa, Maj. Gen Ola J, Oni, Maj. Gen Y. Kure and Maj. Gen D. Bali were northerners who dominated the SMC.
Further on the bias which has consistently propped up in every mention of him in the history Nigeria, no single woman was ever appointed by Buhari in his first time out as a military leader, not in the army or any civil position.
But when asked about this distasteful treatment to the Nigerian women in an interview, Buhari bluntly said, “I failed to get one in mine and I won’t tell you why.”
It is on this basis that we ask Buhari and APC to tell Nigerian women what plans they have for them because we can firmly deduce that Nigerian women generally are not considered significant in his agenda as he seeks the presidency of Nigeria for the fourth time in a row.
The Nigerian Population Commission (NPC) estimates that out of Nigeria’s total population, the women account for about 82 million, this huge population cannot be ignored by any government or persons seeking for political post, but Buhari and APC have chosen to ignore them.
President Goodluck Jonathan has made enviable strides in carrying Nigerian women along in his developmental plans; being the first Nigerian president to approve admission of female cadets into the Nigerian Defence Academy, his efforts in the YouWin initiative have also shown his strength of character in ensuring fair play for all.
Where is Buhari and APC’s plans for our women, we ask again? While we do not expect any meaningful policy document for our women from Buhari and APC at this hour of the election process, we will like to warn Buhari and APC against plagiarizing or copying President Jonathan’s thoughtful policy document for our women as penalties for copyright violations will be enforced in any case of such.
Having also appointed his friends into the SMC as he said in another interview in 1984, “I don’t have many friends, I have very few. Either those we started from school or those I met early in life in the Military, like Tunde (the Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters), we met when we were Junior Officers, Babangida, Magoro, (Members SMC),” we also ask Buhari to show Nigerians the legacies he left behind as a military head of state.
Does it not bother Buhari that the Nigerian military started slipping into a sorry state of neglect through lack of training, poor monitoring, lack of provision of better welfare services and ill-equipped combat force for battle, the moment his appointed friends become partisan with their involvement in governance?
