Senators in Rowdy Session After Abaribe Calls Buhari Incompetent

PDP, Fayose ask president to stop giving excuses for failing to stem farmers-herdsmen’s clashes

It was a rowdy session in the Senate yesterday following Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe’s description of President Muhammadu Buhari as “incompetent” in his handling of clashes between farmers and herdsmen.

Abaribe (Abia PDP) had used the word while reacting to Buhari’s comments made in London last Wednesday when the president said the killer herdsmen were not Nigerians but militias trained by the late Muammar Gadaffi of Libya.

Abaribe, in a motion raised at plenary, queried why Buhari as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces was incapable of protecting Nigeria from foreign invasion.

He also wondered why the president, Inspector General of Police (IG), Ibrahim Idris, and the Minister of Defence, Brigadier General Mansur Dan Ali (rtd), have propounded different reasons for the recurring clashes.

Idris, Abaribe recalled, had blamed the clashes on the antigrazing laws passed by some of the affected states, while the minister had said they were caused by the blockage of grazing routes.

“Yesterday (Wednesday) in London, the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria said the killings are as a result of the people who were trained by the late Gaddafi, and so implying that these people doing these killings in Nigeria are from outside the country.

“When a commander-in-chief cannot take care of invaders invading Nigeria, why is he still a commander-in-chief? Why do we continue to indulge this president (such) that everywhere he goes, he tells everyone outside this country that he is totally incompetent? Because it is obvious…,” Abaribe added.

At this point, his presentation was interrupted by shouts of ‘point of order’ by several senators who raised their hands, requesting permission from the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, to register their protest.

It took a few minutes for calm to be restored to the chamber.

The Majority Leader, Senator Ahmed Lawan, who first took the floor, expressed displeasure at Abaribe’s choice of words, which he said disrespected the president.

“The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is the leader of this country, and he deserves the respect and courtesy of this chamber, and those of us in it. I was once a member of the opposition and I do not recall ever calling the then president