Sack Service Chiefs now – Ebonyi PDP tells Buhari

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The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ebonyi State has called on President Muhammadu Buhari “to heed to the cry of Nigerians to ensure that the service chiefs are sacked.”

The state Chairman of the party, Mr Onyekachi Nwebonyi, in a statement on Tuesday in Abakaliki, argued that the service chiefs have outlived their years of service and should be dropped.

He further reminded the president that “the collective will of the people should form part of Mr President’s prerogative.”

Nwebonyi said: “Senate’s call for the resignation or sack of the service chiefs by the president represents the collective will of Nigerians.

“It is obvious that since the appointment of the present service chiefs insecurity and insurgency have been escalating in the country.

“The North-west has been witnessing unprecedented attacks by insurgents, and elsewhere in the country Fulani herdsmen have been unleashing mayhem on innocent Nigerians unchecked.

“Kidnapping has taken more sophisticated dimensions not to talk of Boko Haram which apparently has become more powerful than the government. All these obtain because the security and defence architecture of the country is completely out of kilter.

“The resolution of the senate for the sack of the service chiefs is therefore a clarion call that ought to be heeded by the presidency, especially now that the Magu case has turned out to exonerate the senate.

“The Magu Gate is just one facet of the necessity for their ouster if they can’t voluntarily resign. The law stipulates 35 years of service for retirement if age permits, but unfortunately, all the service chiefs have put in more than 38 years in service.”

”It is unfortunate however to hear the presidency rejected that call citing prerogative of the president as reason. What then is the prerogative of the president; the collective will of the people or the personal idiosyncrasies of the president?

“The prerogative of the president,, should hinge on exigency and expediency. A position which ineptitude, indignation, and contradiction to the law define, what is the presidency’s rationale to hold on to it?

“In as much as I do not want to criticize Mr. President, he should understand that his prerogatives have always been anti people. It is on record that the chief of army staff enrolled into the service in 1981, 39 years ago, the chief of defence staff, chief of air staff, and chief of Naval staff all enrolled in 1979, 41 years ago. What then is the president’s prerogative?

“With candour and every respect to the office and person of the president, I vehemently posit that the service chiefs should retire or be retired compulsorily.

“I therefore call on President Buhari to swallow his pride and heed the resolution of the senate.”