Former Presidential candidate in the 2019 general elections, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili, has urged the leadership of the National Assembly to invite President Muhammadu Buhari to address the Nigerian public on his administration’s strategies and efforts at containing the Coronavirus pandemic and global economic shock.
Ezekwesili’s spokesperson Ozioma Ubabukoh in a statement said that “at a time Nigeria is at war against a rapidly escalating pandemic of Coronavirus and an increasingly distressed, deteriorating and declining economy, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, President Buhari, is missing in action.”
While posing questions about President Buhari’s whereabouts, Ezekwesili, a co-convener of Bring Back Our Girls, said, “it is grossly irresponsible of Nigeria resident, General Muhammadu Buhari, to hide away from addressing and assuring his citizens at a time like this when leaders of other nations are doing much more.”
The former education minister maintained that “it is grossly incompetent of the President that he moves around ‘Majoring in the Minors of declaring events open’, while his citizens are panicked about the fast accelerating health and economic crises.”
“As a citizen of this country, I demand that the National Assembly, the leadership of the Senate and the House of Representatives, must in the exercise of their oversight role, immediately invite President Buhari to render account and plans of his stewardship on the pandemic and economic wars the country is thrown into. Do this now,” Ezekwesili said.
Ezekwesili said the National Assembly must act swiftly to ask Buhari to provide the constitutional leadership he swore to provide, especially in times of the global coronavirus outbreak.
“NASS must quickly avert any repeat of President Buhari’s lax counter-terrorism war that has cost the country too many lives. A contagion from deadly #CoronaVirus must be avoided immediately,” Ezekwesili said.
“Nigeria simply cannot afford the implications of an exponential increase in the number of citizens infected by #CoronaVirus. It is insensitive of the President to be mute at a time like this.”
She said the recent announcement by the Lagos State Government that it is contact-tracing about 1,300 Nigerians is worrisome.
Ezekwesili said the economic impact of the health crisis will be severe on over 93 million extremely poor citizens.
“President Buhari must be reminded that leadership is not about personal comfort,” Ezekwesili said.
