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You don’t just wake up, want Nigeria destroyed and then want to impeach your President, Gen. Haruna warns senators, media

EditorAugust 8, 2022

8 minutes read

*Cautions against media educating Nigerian people with their president, nation have failed

*Says if Nigeria is in state of war, no media practitioners will be safe to operate

*Posits the saying about ‘Buhari has run out of ideas’ is of media not of people

*Says those thinking impeaching President after his performance is better have no monopoly of action

By KEMI KASUMU

“You don’t see any good in the Nigerian state and we are winning gold in the Commonwealth Games? Let us have faith in our country. Do you think if there was war or anarchy, you would be in this state of affairs?”

For them who are loud in their criticisms of President Muhammadu Buhari saying he has run out of ideas in the fight against insecurity in the country or that he has failed Nigerians, a word has gone to them from experienced war veteran, who knows what fighting unconventional war like guerrilla war or fighting terrorism entails.

This was handed out by a retired Army General and Federal Commissioner for Information and Culture, Major General Ibrahim Bata Malgwi Haruna, while featuring on The Morning Show on Arise TV, on Monday August 8, 2022.

Responding to questions posed by his hosts, General IBM Haruna said schooled critics to know that President Buhari is not just chief executive of a private sector.

The retired General, who noted that the President is not running the Nigerian state on his own ideas and merit, stated that he (Buhari) is running Nigeria on the basis of the mandate given to him by the electorate since 2015.The DEFENDER reports that delayed release of the kidnapped train attack victims, being used by most Nigerians as reason for saying the President has failed, was informed by the the Nigerian Leader’s compassion by which he said “all of the hostages must be rescued alive and safe”.According to the former Information and Culture Minister, when asked by Rufai Oseni as to whether he thinks President has run out of ideas as regards fighting the problem of insecurity, “The President as the Chief Executive of the Nigerian State does not run Nigeria on his own ideas and merits. He runs Nigeria on the mandate given to him overwhelmingly by the electorate since 2015.”He runs the state in accordance with the Constitution and in accordance with the law and he distributes orders in accordance of the law and the Constitution of Nigeria, not in accordance of decree where, in Council of Military as the President and Commander-in-Chief, he stands paramount like a chief in his kingdom.”So, he has no ideas except to promote the attainment of the mandate given to him by the electorate and also to put into effect the provisions of the Nigerian Constitution to which he has sworn an oath and to which he is responsible for the exercise of their sovereignty through which he assumed and was conferred with the powers, which he has to exercise.

“He has, in recent time in the last few weeks re-gingered the armed forces and the security agencies because I notice they have been having conferences and re-directions of their efforts and they are achieving what, if they had engaged in doing in the last few years, perhaps we would have been in a better security environment,” the General responded.

Rufai Oseni, taking the war veteran back to question he had answered, warranted cautioning the mass media against running down the president and system of their own country.At the point the journalist, again, said people say President Buhari has run out of idea, the General needed at that point to teach the teacher.“When you say he’s run out of idea, I have just said we are not run by his ideas. I have just said it. You can’t push it down me that I must accept that he has run out of ideas. We are not run by his ideas, he’s not just like chief executive officer of a private sector. We are talking about President of the Nigerian State to which we all belong and we all have our performances.“You cannot have mass media educating their people in believing that their state is a failure, their President is a failure, their system is a failure. Then where do we go from there?”You don’t see any good in the Nigerian state but we are winning gold medals in World Athletics? Come on! Let us have some faith in our country,” the General schooled the questioner.

Coming next was the question to insist by challenging the General saying, “Then Major General, show me the result as regards insecurity, show them to me!”

Responding, the former GOC asked, “How do I show you?”

He said, “You don’t show it. You are at work, you are feeling safe, you are communicating, you want me to show you. Do you think if there is war or anarchy, you will be in this state of affairs? You only want me to show you failure, you don’t want me to show you success? Come on, let’s love a Nigeria that makes people have hope! You are represented in world’s sport,” the General got apparently baffled that Journalists, who should tell Nigerians what realities and truth are and which will encourage them to stand against their challenges, were the ones pushing to the public what compound their problems.

Adamant Rufai Oseni, who only recently was convicted and fined by a Lagos State mobile court for breaking the traffick law of the state, still tried to push it at the General saying “what I was trying to ask you” and the General interjected him, “Then try to ask me what you are trying to ask me. Don’t ask me what you are not trying to ask me.”

He rode on, “This is what I was trying to ask you. Since everybody is talking about running out of idea and everything, then what next do we do? That is it! What next do we do?” Rufai asked.

But the General gave it back to him hot: “Not everybody is talking; say you are talking.”

He fired on, “40 years ago when I was a General and we were fighting war, I was a commander in the Civil War, we lost lives, we had hope, we had survived up till today.

“Why do you mass media think only of failure? If we have failed, we will not be talking about Nigeria today. We have not failed. Why do you say his ideas, ideas? You want to shove it in me to say in my mouth that he’s run out of ideas. Then, he has not run out of ideas. We are still solving our problems.”

Rufai said, “General, I didn’t say that, a Senator said that.”

General IBM Haruna said, “Well, I don’t know. I am not in charge of senators. Look, he said that, he is entitled to his opinion. We are in a democracy. Are you saying that he shouldn’t express himself? He has expressed himself but I don’t have to agree with it and he doesn’t have to be the mask of our Nigerian progress. One Senator out of hundred and ninety or so, why aren’t you talking about what the other senators are saying? Why don’t you balance this idea of opinion?”

Same Rufai Oseni still continued facing the General saying, “Speaking of what the other senators are saying, they were going to impeach him for insecurity. That is what the other senators are saying. What is your reaction to that?”

Replying to his question General IBM Haruna said: “Impeachment or stopping him from continuing to be President is a procedural constitutional means provided. There is a law provided to it. So, what is the hyperbole about they are going to impeach him. If you impeach him, so what? We still have a process. We have a system and they have to go through a procedure.

“So, why do you want to make me feel like we are in situation of fire alarm? There is nothing alarming about that. It is foreseeable, it is provided for, there is a process for it, there is a procedure. So it doesn’t have to be a fuel for anarchy and disorder. It’s logical process. If they feel like it, let them convince others. They are not the only senators who want to impeach him. They were put there by voters, by electorate and they, themselves, have to consult. The ideas are not paramount.

“And we don’t even know, in a democracy there has to be a process that involves the desire, endorsement of a majority of people, who belong to that idea. They have the idea, they want to impeach and they have chosen their own term to impeach him, it’s been there almost eight years. At the end of his performance, they want to impeach him, meaning what?

“Maybe you woke up one day on the wrong side of your bed and you think that Nigeria must be destroyed, the President must go; that’s your idea. That’s how you feel that morning you woke up and then went to the Senate. Go and convince the senators and convince us too.”

About IMB Haruna

Major General Ibrahim Bata Malgwi Haruna (Rtd), Federal Commissioner for Information and Culture (1975-77), was born 24th July 1940 in Maiduguri, Borno State. He was among the 30 recruits enrolled into the Boys Company, later known as Nigerian Military School, in 1954 and who were known the “First Platoon”. In 1958, General IBM Haruna went to Regular Officers’ Special Training School, Teshi, Republic of Ghana, and later to Mons Officers’ Cadet School, Aldershot, England in 1959. He was commissioned into the Nigerian Army in 1961 upon his graduation as a member of RMA 27 of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, United Kingdom.

As an army officer, IBM Haruna attended various courses. These include Joint-Services Staff College (JSSC) Latimer, United Kingdom (1972-1973). Prior to this he had qualified as an Ordnance Officer at the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Blackdown, United Kingdom, in 1963. He was appointed the Principal Provision Control and Accounts Officer, Army Base Ordnance Depot, Yaba, Lagos in 1964; Commanding Officer, Base Ordnance Depot, Yaba, Lagos (1965); Chief Ordnance Officer Nigerian Army and Ordnance Corps Commander (1966-1967); Leader, Army Delegation to USA Orientation Visit (1966). At the onset of the Nigerian Civil War he was appointed Rear Commander, 1 Division Nigerian Army, Kaduna (1967) and later was once Commandant, Lagos Garrison Organisation and 3 Marine Commandant, fought gallantly in the Nigerian Civil War to the extent of being notably accused of ordering the Asaba Massacre during the Nigerian Civil War.

The former GOC at various times and Member of the General Adebayo Committee for the Re-Absorption of Biafran former Nigerian Army Officers (1970) established, as Federal Commissioner for Information and Culture, what is today known as Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) in 1975 and retired from the Nigerian Army in 1977, after which he became Chairman Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) between 2009-2012.

The golfer is a Solicitor and Advocate of the Supreme Court of Nigeria and also a Notary Public of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as well as a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Management.

EditorAugust 8, 2022

8 minutes read

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You don’t just wake up, want Nigeria destroyed and then want to impeach your President, Gen. Haruna warns senators, media

*Cautions against media educating Nigerian people with their president, nation have failed

*Says if Nigeria is in state of war, no media practitioners will be safe to operate

*Posits the saying about ‘Buhari has run out of ideas’ is of media not of people

*Says those thinking impeaching President after his performance is better have no monopoly of action

“You don’t see any good in the Nigerian state and we are winning gold in the Commonwealth Games? Let us have faith in our country. Do you think if there was war or anarchy, you would be in this state of affairs?”

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*Cautions against media educating Nigerian people with their president, nation have failed

*Says if Nigeria is in state of war, no media practitioners will be safe to operate

*Posits the saying about ‘Buhari has run out of ideas’ is of media not of people

*Says those thinking impeaching President after his performance is better have no monopoly of action

“You don’t see any good in the Nigerian state and we are winning gold in the Commonwealth Games? Let us have faith in our country. Do you think if there was war or anarchy, you would be in this state of affairs?”

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