Buhari Loyalists Should Expect Disappointment – Coomasie

Alhaji Ibrahim Coomassie

Ibrahim Coomasie, former Inspector-General of Police and presently, chairman of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has disclosed why the North moved massively for President Muhammadu Buhari and against former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Coomasie said this in an interview with Leadership.
Here is an excerpt from the interview:

With the emergence of President Buhari, do you think the North has achieved one of its major agendums?
Buhari became so famous during the electioneering and on the political scene generally. If you recall, the arrangement when it was decided that power should go to the South was that after eight years, it would come back to the North but that was disrupted somehow by nature when the late president Umaru Musa Yar’Adua died and Jonathan continued, isn’t it? Some people believed that with the completion of his first tenure, Jonathan should have stepped aside and allowed another Northerner to come and complete the term. This was not to be. To make matters worse, the last six years of Jonathan’s administration ignored two important issues which were provided for in the constitution.
The purpose of government is to provide security and welfare of the people. Jonathan ignored this and for six years, our people were being killed in the North-East of the country, property were being destroyed, children were killed, schools destroyed and even some were kidnapped. So, one of the things we said was that enough is enough. The ACF under our leadership told the Northern governors that the carnage and devastation in the North was enough and that something must be done about it.
Later on, we wrote the president an open letter which was published in the media, highlighting all the atrocities that had been happening in the North. We talked about the attacks on the North and the attacks on personalities, including the incumbent president and some clergymen like Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi, who was attacked in Kaduna. There was no reply from the Presidency. This thing spread to even the North-Central and North-West and because of that, the ACF spearheaded the leadership of other NGOs in the North to say enough is enough. What we needed then was to bring back the arrangement of power shift and it meant we would support a Northern candidate. So, when the APC brought up a Northern candidate, we came all out to support him. We decided to try a Northern candidate and when APC brought out Muhammadu Buhari as its candidate, I went on air to rally support for him even though there were few resentments here and there.
So are you suggesting that with the emergence of a Northerner as president, there will be an end to insurgency?
It will be checked effectively. It’s only one month now and you have seen what he has done so far. He has visited the scene of the incident; he has seen the president of Chad Republic; he has seen the president of Niger Republic and he has visited the G-7 Summit. He is doing something to prepare the ground for final onslaught against Boko Haram. In fact, he said he will fight Boko Haram to the last man. Did we hear this type of thing from Jonathan while he was in office? He wasn’t even visiting the place.
Do you think Buhari can really fight corruption the way he did years back, given the fact that he  also got financial support from some of these people who are perceived as corrupt?
Why not? The question is; are they prepared for a change? Should we continue to live like this? Can’t we think of what we can leave for future generations? Should we corner everything to our pockets? If people cannot think like this, there will be difficulty as they won’t cooperate with Buhari. But if they want a change so that Nigeria can develop and compete with other nations globally, then they have to cooperate with him.
But some of them may be concerned by the fact that they assisted him?
If they assisted him, in what way and were they compelled to assist him? Why did they assist him? Why did they bring him to the party when they know the type of person he is? What we are saying is if we need a change for the better, for our people, then we must cooperate with the president. You see I’m confident in the ability of the president to change this country because he said he will fight corruption, reposition the economy and address insecurity.
Don’t you think these people close to him, who are perceived to be corrupt, will fight back when he starts the corruption war because as it is often said, when you fight corruption, it fights back?
You seem to be personalising the whole issue. He moving against corruption does not mean against individuals. He is moving against corruption, graft and economic sabotage.
There have been concerns about the delay by the president in making appointments, even as he has indicated that he will reduce the size of his government. Amidst all these, there is the issue of federal character and regional balancing. What should be the primary consideration of the president in choosing his team?
He should go for people who have the knowledge of what he wants to achieve, he should look for people who have integrity and are patriotic. They should be people who are thinking of Nigeria and what to do to protect its image.
Read full interview here…