Why Buhari Supports Western Sahara, But Won’t Tolerate Biafra – Presidency
Garba Shehu, presidential media aide, in the
interview granted to the New Telegraph, has said
that the government of Muhammadu Buhari is not
ready to release former national security adviser
Sambo Dasuki.
According to him, former NSA, who is currently in
the custody of the Department of State Services
(DSS), has numerous cases in court, which he must
diligently face and answer.
Buhari’s aide explained that the cases against
Dasuki were all complicated. Answering to
criticisms that he president does not respect court
orders and continues to detain Dasuki, Shehu said:
“ The ex-NSA’s problem is not with President Buhari
who I must say has the highest regard for the rule
of law.”
He noted that President Buhari is the best friend of
the rule of law and due process the country has
seen so far.
“If five courts of the land are trying different cases
in which a man is involved and one or two of those
courts let the accused persons go home on bail,
what happens with the other three cases?
“If you are a prisons controller, will you set that
person free when you have three other judges
directing that he be kept in detention?
“Colonel Dasuki faces a multiplicity of cases and,
sadly for him, his hand appears to be showing in
more of the cases as recent revelations from the
ongoing investigation in the Office of the NSA has
shown,” he added.
Presidential spokesman also touched upon the
issue of Biafra movement, saying that the
matter was a rested case.
Garba stated that those calling for Biafra
independence have no understanding about the
political history of Nigeria. According to him, the
issue of Biafra was settled at the end of that civil
war.
“Remember that this country fought a civil war for
30 months in which one million people were killed.
“The issue of Biafra was settled at the end of that
civil war. What is there again?
“It is people who haven’t read Nigerian history and
don’t know about it that are trying to raise new
dust,” he stated.
“For anybody to make comparison between
Western Sahara and Biafra, that is a display of
knowledge deficit in international politics. One,
Western Sahara is a classic case of decolonisation.
It is the last remaining colony on the African
continent and we all owe it a duty to ourselves to
liberate Western Sahara.
“In fact, as military Head of State, President Buhari
was the first to recognise Western Sahara and then
the rest of Africa followed.
So, he is being consistent. But Biafra is for the dismemberment of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which is already a settled entity. These two scenarios are clearly
different,” Shehu underlined. President Buhari recently expressed his support
for the liberation of the Saharawi people in
Morocco.
During his first presidential media chat Buhari
explained why his government has denied to
release Dasuki, and the leader of the Indigenous
Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu, despite
several court orders.
Buhari said the two accused persons cannot be
allowed to enjoy any form of freedom due to the
enormity of their offenses.
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