President Muhammadu Buhari has warned that rude shock awaits those unpatriotic elements promoting insurrection and burning critical national assets across the country.
Femi Adesina, the president’s spokesman, in a statement, said Buhari gave the warning after he received a briefing from the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, at the State House, on Tuesday in Abuja.
Yakubu briefed the president on series of attacks on facilities of the electoral body around the country.
Mr Buhari said: “I receive daily security reports on the attacks, and it is very clear that those behind them want this administration to fail.
“Insecurity in Nigeria is now mentioned all over the world. All the people who want power, whoever they are, you wonder what they really want.
“Whoever wants the destruction of the system will soon have the shock of their lives. We’ve given them enough time.”
The president recalled that he visited all the 36 states of the country before the 2019 election, “and the majority of the people believed me, and the election proved it”.
He however promised to continue leading the country in accordance with Constitutional provisions.
He said those misbehaving in certain parts of the country were obviously too young to know the travails and loss of lives that attended the Nigerian civil war.
“Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.
“We are going to be very hard sooner than later.”
The president said the Service Chiefs and the Inspector-General of Police had been changed, “and we will demand security from them”.
On the dangers posed to future elections by the burning of INEC facilities, Buhari said he would give the electoral commission all it needed to operate, “so that no one would say we don’t want to go, or that we want a third term.
“There will be no excuse for failure. We’ll meet all INEC’s demands.”
Earlier in his briefing, Mr Yakubu said that, so far, there had been 42 cases of attacks on INEC offices nationwide, since the last general election.
“The 42 incidents so far occurred in 14 states of the federation for a variety of reasons.
“Most of the attacks happened in the last seven months, and they are unrelated to protest against previous elections.
“From the pattern and frequency of the most recent attacks, they appear to be targeted at future elections,’’ he said.
According to Mr Yakubu, the intention of the anarchists is to incapacitate the commission, undermine the nation’s democracy and precipitate a national crisis.
NAN
