The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has blamed the Federal Government for its seeming inability to anticipate, manage and control the wanton killings and destruction of property in the country.
At a news briefing yesterday in Abuja tagged, State of the Nation: Time to end the drift, ASUU President, Biodun Ogunyemi, lambasted politicians for taking advantage of the raging crisis between farmers and herdsmen to feather their political nests.
He said it is high time government checked the drift in governance since the return to civilian rule in 1999.
According to him, Nigerians had hoped for socio-economic opportunities that would improve their unenviable conditions but have had them dashed by successive administrations.
On the farmers-pastoralists conflict, ASUU said President Muhammadu Buhari and his ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) government must take responsibility for the failure to anticipate and manage the massacres in parts of the federation.
Ogunyemi therefore called on government to immediately set up a national panel made up of Nigerians with track records in rule of law to investigate the carnage.
His words: “Government’s handling of the issue has fallen far short of protecting certain constitutional provisions on fundamental human rights.”
The ASUU boss particularly accused government of failure to enforce Section 17 (2b) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) which upholds the sanctity of human life and dignity.
Also yesterday, a pro-democracy organisation, Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA), described as insensitive, heartless and irresponsible the statement credited to the presidency “blackmailing Nigerians to give up their land for ranching rather than being killed.”
It contended that the assertion was the clearest circumstantial evidence that the current administration had resolved to watch as hundreds of farmers are murdered in their land by suspected herdsmen.
HURIWA expressed optimism that the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands would take judicial notice of this “confessional statement of guilt in the killings of innocent Nigerians by Miyetti Allah Cattle Owners Association’s sponsored armed Fulani herdsmen and therefore order the arrest of key government officials working for the Muhammadu Buhari administration.”
