ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – The President of United States, Barack Obama, has been formally presented with over 4,000-signatory petition, calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to respect court orders, uphold the constitution of Nigeria or resign from office.
The petition, which is being championed by a constitutional and human rights lawyer, Ms Carol Ajie, was sent to Obama on Monday, urging him to bear his influence on Buhari to respect the rule of law.
Ajie had in the petition, which was launched on the new year eve through the popular petition site Change.org, with over 4000 signatories and 47,000 views, also urged civil society organisations (CSOs), lawyers, legislators, the National Judicial Council (NJC), and the Body of Benchers, amongst others to “Call on President Buhari to Resign From Office for His Disobedience to Court Orders”.
The concerned lawyer with support of other members of the judicial arm of the government including the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), asserted that Buhari, by his statements during the presidential media chat at the State House in Abuja, is behind the flagrant disobedient to court orders.
Through the petition, Ajie made what she described as a clarion call on President Obama and other concerned stakeholders to: “respectfully call President Buhari to order, prohibit violence from politics and rights advocacy campaigns, ask President Buhari to respect court orders or resign, support Nigeria and Nigerians to achieve true federalism or support the path to a confederation of independent states in Nigeria”.
She listed some factors in the current administration, which necessitated the petition including “sectional tension, deliberate acts of inhumanity and dehumanisation, gender injustice, presidential profligacy and budget 2016, gender injustice, and disobedience of court orders.
She said: “President Buhari’s unfair tactics, expression of prejudices and hostility towards the people commonly known as “Biafrans”, in the South Eastern region of Nigeria, is a bad precedent against our peaceful co-existence. The gravamen of his complaint is that the Igbos did not vote for him in March 2015.
“President Buhari was quoted as saying those who didn’t vote for him will be punished and sadly demonstrated this in a modern society: http://www.naijaloaded.com.ng/2015/07/23/pres-buhari-says-he-wont-treat-people-who-didnt-vote-for-him-equally-with-those-who-voted-for-him-see-video/
“A recent report, underscores the “politics of divisiveness”: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/01/sagays-comment-on-biafra-blanket-abuse-of-igbo-nation-iym/”
Ajie in the petition, also accused the President of deliberate acts of inhumanity and dehumanisation, especially against the Shiites and Biafran agitators, liking his treatment of these two groups to what led to the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
The human rights activist also accused President Buhari of gender injustice, saying: “for obscure reasons, President Buhari ceded only 15 per cent to women in his cabinet, without remorse or apologies.”
In the same vein, Ajie described as shocking, the presidential profligacy in the 2016 budget, saying “President Buhari’s failure to downsize excessive presidential fleet; and his prodigious spending of N1.8 billion monthly on maintenance costs for 11 aircraft viz Falcon 7X Jets, Falcon 900, Gulfstream 550, Boeing 737 BBJ, Gulfstream IVSP, Gulfstream V etc.”
According to her, majority of Nigerians live in squalor in the cruel face of splendor where the lives of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) could be transformed with as little as 10 per cent of the monthly air fleet maintenance costs.
“Shocking extravagance displayed in 2016 budget presented to a joint session of the National Assembly on 22nd December 2015 surpasses previous regimes as Buhari’s frugal proclivity and Spartan predilection suddenly disappear”, she said.
Ajie also condemned what she said is flagrant disregard to court orders, noting that President Buhari had during his first media chat said “that his regime will not release persons in detention despite several court orders because according to him, they could jump bail, if allowed freedom”.
“Because it is an encroachment on the judicial arm, calculated to humiliate Judges, and consistent with the principles of human rights work and decades of public interest advocacy campaigns, I created an online petition on Thursday 31st Dec., 2015 to protest Buhari’s deliberate disobedience of court orders, to respect the Constitution under which he took his Oaths, to protect our laws or resign from office if he was unable to comply else impeachment proceedings could be taken against him by our legislators,” she said.
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The legal practitioner also noted that “1,000 signatures were targeted considering there are 360 members of the house of representatives, 109 Senators and 300-400 members of the National Executive Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association and the civil society”.
She ,however, said that they exceeded the target by 400 per cent having garnered over 4000 signatures.
“Once President Buhari and his supporters saw the said online petition of 31st Dec., 2015, they fought back and started a counter petition on 3rd Jan., 2016. Although they have received a paltry two percent less of their one million target at the time we recorded 400 per cent success in excess of our target, not surprising Nigerians prefer peace to impunity, a colossal failure”, she stated.
