NATIONAL: Buhari afraid of coup, won’t sack Service Chiefs, says Senator Hangar

A FORMER Kano Central Senator, Rufai Hanga, has said President Buhari is retaining the Service Chiefs because he is afraid of a coup.
Hanga, who is also an ex-member of the House of Representatives, stated this in an interview with The Sun.

Nigerians, including members of the National Assembly, have made renewed calls for the change of the Service Chiefs following the recent massacre of 43 rice farmers in Maiduguri by Book Haram terrorists.

But reacting to the development, Hangar described the call by the National Assembly as “a mere political statement” that will not be backed by any action.

He said, “The Senate and the House of Representatives have made this call several times, but the president has refused to act for the reasons best known to him. Some people say he is afraid of coup. He once mentioned it that he didn’t want to change the Service Chief because there were very ambitious officers down the ladder. That means he is afraid of coup. The most unfortunate thing is that these Service Chiefs have over stayed their usefulness. Some of them have spent 40 years in service. The rule is that you retire after 35 years of service or upon the attainment of 60 years of age. Some of these people have spent far and above their age of retirement so much that the junior officers are being retired.”

He said it is very demoralising for the subordinates of these Service Chiefs as they’re denied of the opportunities to get to the pinnacle of their profession and bring their professionalism to bear on the security challenges bedevilling the country.

The former lawmaker, however, said there will be no consequence for Buhari if he chooses not to honour the invitation from the green chamber.

He stressed that the country is still divided along the fault line of ethnicity and most of the senators and members of House of Representatives from the Northern region can not muster the courage required to remove the president from office despite glaring failure.

Hangar said, “A resolution is not a must for the president to do. But in this kind of circumstance, it is impeachment. Can they impeach him? They cannot. I watched it on television sometimes ago when a member of the House of Representatives said they were signing a resolution to impeach the president. And when he brought the paper to somebody from the North to sign, he said “I don’t like the president, but I will not sign it. How can I sign for a Yoruba man to take over?” Is that a leader? Is he serving his own people or Nigeria? These kind of people do not deserve to be in leadership position. If you want to be a good leader, you have to clean your mind that you are doing it for Nigeria. You see everybody as a Nigerian, not as Igbo, Hausa or Yoruba. This is a man who acted very briefly and did wonders. The little time he was there, people were hailing him for what he did. We are still deeply divided. One of the things anybody coming in will do will be to unify the country.”

Hangar, however, urged the president to make efforts to use the remaining years of his tenure to do the right thing because if his place in history.

“President Buhari should do the right thing now and leave a legacy. If he doesn’t do the right thing, he will go with ignominy, he will have no more reputation, he will have no more integrity, and nobody will trust or believe him again. The moment he leaves office, he will regret having not done certain things. This is my own advice to him. He should right the wrong now so that his future will be better. If we continue like this, we are breeding a future that will be worse than what we are seeing now in Maiduguri and other places. If we continue like this people will regret being Nigerians. Everybody will be on his or her own. We inherited the problem we are in now; he should try to better it so that the future will be great.”

Senior Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Garbage Shehu, had said it’s the prerogative of the president to decide whether to sack or retain the Service Chiefs and no pressure from people can force him to act against his wish.