President Muhammadu Buhari has described as unfair the comment by the Catholic Bishop of Yola Diocese, Rt. Rev. Fr. Stephen Mamza that he was \u201csleeping on duty as Commander-in-Chief.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buhari spoke through Malam Garba Shehu, the President\u2019s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity.<\/p>\n
The presidential aide observed that it was unbecoming of a religious leader, like Mamza, to engage \u201din an action that broke the old tradition of staying above politics\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201dIn an action that broke the old tradition of staying above politics, the Catholic Bishop of Yola Diocese, Rt. Rev. Fr. Stephen Mamza delivered a homily in which he spoke angrily against President Muhammadu Buhari, whom he described as \u2018sleeping on duty as Commander-in-Chief.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201dThis is not a fair comment.<\/p>\n
\u201dThere is so much that has changed in the past three to four years in and around Yola, and the Catholic Church in particular that a true assessment would show that but for the Change Administration of President Buhari, things would have continued the way they were, or even get worse. These could not have happened if a Commander-in- Chief was asleep.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shehu, however, noted that Mamza was part of the success story recorded by the Buhari administration in Northeast, especially in Adamawa.<\/p>\n
\u201dBishop Mamza was, and is still a strong member of the Adamawa Peace Initiative (API), composed of religious and community leaders which did the lovely work housing and feeding 400,000 displaced people from Northern Adamawa and Borno States in 2015.<\/p>\n
\u201dThe API also did the extraordinary work of easing tensions between Muslims and Christians during that period and ensured that both groups did not turn on one another based on suspicion.<\/p>\n
\u201dAs widely reported by the local and international press, in the premises of St. Theresa\u2019s Cathedral where Rev. Mamza ministered, there were more than 1,500 IDPs, mostly women and children on whom the church administered food rations and issued bags of maize, cooking oil and seasoning.<\/p>\n
\u201dWe are truly touched and very grateful for the work that the Bishop and the others had done in that difficult period,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The presidential spokesman maintained that as \u201dthe Boko Haram has been degraded, the more than 400,000 displaced people absorbed by the Adamawa community have all gone back to Borno State and to those council areas in northern Adamawa.<\/p>\n
\u201dIn addition to the capital,Yola, the towns of Michika, Madagali and Mubi which had been occupied by Boko Haram during their military advances have since been retaken by the Nigerian military\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to him, the military personnel are also clearing litters of Boko Haram\u2019s carnage and are, through the support of the administration as well as local and international partners, rebuilding roads and bridges, power lines, burnt schools, markets, destroyed churches and mosques.<\/p>\n
\u201dWithout an iota of doubt, the Northeast is better off with President Buhari than it was under the previous administration.<\/p>\n
\u201dThat should explain the massive turnout of voters in the region, in spite of threats to life and property, to vote for the return of the President for a Second Term of four years.<\/p>\n
\u201dSadly, one of the realities of today\u2019s Nigeria is that it easy to blame President Buhari for the violence all around us,\u201d he added<\/p>\n
Shehu condemned situations were community leaders were \u201dtoo scared to blame the warlords and the sponsors of killings\u201d because they fear for their own lives.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201dWhat is happening in several communities racked by inter-ethnic and religious violence is arising from the refusal of community leaders to point at known criminals in their midst for the law enforcement agencies to act against them.<\/p>\n
\u201dThey rather blame President Buhari for their woes.<\/p>\n
\u201dIt is indeed an irony that in the week that Bishop Mamza was speaking, another Bishop with a known commitment to peace, and results to show for his work in neighbouring Plateau State, is being dispatched to go to Taraba, Adamawa and Benue to work in collaboration with security agencies in mending broken inter-communal relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n
While sympathising with families of those who lost loved ones as well as those injured, Shehu said this senseless violence could never be condoned by the Buhari administration.<\/p>\n
He added that the administration\u2019s intense security efforts and peace building would not only continue, \u201dbut will expand in response to such explosions of violence in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
President Muhammadu Buhari has described as unfair the comment by the Catholic Bishop of Yola Diocese, Rt. Rev. Fr. Stephen Mamza that he was \u201csleeping on duty as Commander-in-Chief.\u201d Buhari spoke through Malam Garba Shehu, the President\u2019s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity. The presidential aide observed that it was unbecoming of a religious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":2196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[97,207,136,235],"class_list":["post-8887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-buhari","tag-christianity","tag-death","tag-president"],"yoast_head":"\n