HURIWA rebukes senior lawyer, Robert Clarke, over clamour for Buhari’s tenure elongation

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) on Tuesday cautioned a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Robert Clarke, against destabilising the country.

The group made the call in a statement issued by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, in Abuja.

HURIWA was reacting to Clarke’s demand for elongation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure by six months to enable him to fix the country’s challenges, particularly security.

The lawyer, who stated this in an interview on Arise TV, said the constitution allows the President to extend his term for six months in the first instance if election conditions are not favourable.

In its reaction, HURIWA urged Nigerians to oppose Buhari’s subterranean schemes to extend his presidency by using surrogates who would flood the media with unsustainable and irrational requests for a third term for the President.

The statement read: “We think that when elders talk they should show wisdom rather than make people begin to wonder what type of warped logic is being unleashed.

“Those who want us the younger ones to call them elders and respect their old age because of what that concept means in a lot of African cultures and cosmological deduction as symbolising wisdom, then these elders must not speak like little minds and make proposals that may imperil the entire nation all because of the pursuit of some selfish ambitions for some alleged or perceived paymasters.

“President Muhammadu Buhari is the major cause of the escalation of violence and terrorism in Nigeria since the last 7 years that he came on board controversially through two very disreputable elections.

“Is it by giving him 6 months that he will solve what he refused to resolve in 7 years? Even if you give Muhammadu Buhari till eternity, he can’t improve the security situation because he is grossly incompetent and is a bigoted Islamic religious extremist.”