I am not sleeping on duty, Buhari replies Catholic Bishop

Following criticisms that he is not alive to his duties as Commander-in-Chief, President Muhammadu Buhari, has described comments credited to the Catholic Bishop of Yola Diocese, Reverend Stephen Mamza, as unfair and out of sync with the Bishops office.
Mamza at Easter regretted the recent attacks on Adamawa, Benue, Zamfara, Nasarawa states and Southern Kaduna.
“We are really in a dilemma. We (Nigerians) are feeling that we don’t have protection. From all indications, there’s nothing being done. There have been calls from all over the country. Look at what is happening in Zamfara State; look at what is happening in Benue periodically, in Nasarawa State and now in Adamawa (Southern Adamawa).
“If there is a government in place then the government should listen to the people and address the security challenges. We have mass burials from time to time and there’s no sign the government cares about what is happening…
“Why are we living in a country where it seems there’s no government in place?” the Catholic Bishop lamented…

“Since the history of this country, apart from the civil war we have never had the kind of killings under a President like we have in the last four years. So, it is clear, the killings are too many. And if the strategies they have in place do not work why can’t he (Buhari) change and overhaul the entire security architecture? People have been asking him to overhaul his security chiefs but he doesn’t listen. He doesn’t care.”
Mamza joins an array of religious lines that have criticised government’s handling of security matters in the countryntrt, especially in the North-East geopolitical zone.
But in a response, Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, noted that in an action that broke the old tradition of staying above politics, Mamza delivered a homily in which he spoke angrily against President Muhammadu Buhari, whom he described as “sleeping on duty as Commander-in-Chief.”
“This is not a fair comment,” Shehu said.
His statement reads further: “There is so much that has changed in the past three to four years in and around Yola, and the Catholic Church in particular that a true assessment would show that but for the Change Administration of President Buhari, things would have continued the way they were, or even get worse. These could not have happened if a Commander-in- Chief was asleep.
“Bishop Mamza was, and is still a strong member of the Adamawa Peace Initiative, API, composed of religious and community leaders which did the lovely work housing and feeding 400,000 displaced people from Northern Adamawa and Borno States in 2015. The API also did the extraordinary work of easing tensions between Muslims and Christians during that period and ensured that both groups did not turn on one another based on suspicion.
“As widely reported by the local and international press, in the premises of St. Theresa’s Cathedral where Rev. Mamza ministered, there were more than 1,500 IDPs, mostly women and children on whom the church administered food rations and issued bags of maize, cooking oil and seasoning. We are truly touched and very grateful for the work that the Bishop and the others had done in that difficult period.
“Now that Boko Haram has been degraded, the more than 400,000 displaced people absorbed by the Adamawa community have all gone back to Borno State and to those council areas in northern Adamawa.
“In addition to the capital,Yola, the towns of Michika, Madagali and Mubi which had been occupied by Boko Haram during their military advances have since been retaken by the Nigerian military, whose personnel are also clearing litters of Boko Haram’s carnage and are, through the support of the administration as well as local and international partners, rebuilding roads and bridges, power lines, burnt schools, markets, destroyed churches and mosques.
“Without an iota of doubt, the Northeast is better off with President Buhari than it was under the previous administration. That should explain the massive turnout of voters in the region, in spite of threats to life and property, to vote for the return of the President for a Second Term of four years.
“Sadly, one of the realities of today’s Nigeria is that it easy to blame President Buhari for the violence all around us. Community leaders are too scared to blame the warlords and the sponsors of killings we live with because they fear for their own lives.
“What is happening in several communities racked by inter-ethnic and religious violence is arising from the refusal of community leaders to point at known criminals in their midst for the law enforcement agencies to act against them. They rather blame President Buhari for their woes.
“It is indeed an irony that in the week that Bishop Mamza was speaking, another Bishop with a known commitment to peace, and results to show for his work in neighbouring Plateau State, is being dispatched to go to Taraba, Adamawa and Benue States to work in collaboration with security agencies in mending broken inter-communal relationships.
“This senseless violence can never be condoned by the administration and we sympathize with the families of those who lost loved ones as well as those injured. The administration’s intense security efforts and peace building will not only continue, but will expand in response to such explosions of violence in the country”.