Tukur Yusuf Buratai
ADDRESS OF LT. GENERAL ALANI AKINRINADE ON THE VISIT OF GENERAL TY BURATAI COAS TO OSUN STATE TO COMMISSION PROJECTS AT KUTA AND ASAMU ON MONDAY 14TH SEPTEMBER, 2020
Please allow me to join my Governor and the good people of Osun State to welcome you to our State, the State of ‘Omoluabi’.
I am particularly grateful to you for taking on the difficult task of building abridge at a very important part of our State and over the mother river of our State.
You have graciously complimented the efforts of our Government who has given public health care pride of place in our development by giving us a clinic.
Perhaps it will be apt to let you know that the last time the Army, as represented by the Army Engineers, struck in our State was the time Governor Bisi Akande decided to face the tricky project of urban renewal at Osogbo.
The Army Engineers became handy in the demolition and building work.
That has become part of the culture now amongst the modernizing elite of our State, after that brave pioneering work.
May I say, you have now carved another image for the Army Engineers, they can build a bridge and a clinic without demolition.
I am particularly grateful to you and your staff for improving Military Civil relationship by embarking on projects that can contribute to the welfare of our population and for including our State in your activities. I thank you most sincerely.
I have a sneaky feeling that you will brief our Commander In Chief on this visit on your return to base.
Please give him the best wishes of Osun people and their expectations that he will leave a memorable landmark in our country at the expiration of his tenure.
Please, grant me the indulgence to mention to him one or two matters that throw me into distress because of my association with him.
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The first is this pervasive believe that he is an ethnic bigot, an irredeemable religious fundamentalist that he firmly subscribes and promotes the possibility of his ethnic Fulani to take over the country, the reason he does not interfere in curbing the brigandage of the Fulani herdsmen, that he has performed woefully in the fight against the terrorist Boko Haram and that he cannot rise to the occasion when it comes to reflecting the heterogeneous composition of our country when it comes to appointments to sensitive positions in his government. These are difficult matters that cannot be addressed in abstract. The whole buck stops on his table.
I cannot claim to have adequate information outside what the media and the ubiquitous social media chew out every second. I know, that you and your brother Service Chiefs are doing your best within the resources our country can make available to you.
Let me suggest to him that he needs to shape up, read the riot act to our people, enlist them in unswerving cooperation to participate fully in the redemption of their country. I am sure he is aware of the hue and cry from all corners and crannies of our country for secession as if we have not been there before.
He needs to stand on his table against the motley crowd of advisers and take a firm stand on there organization of our country, physically, politically, economically and socially. What we simply term as reorganization in the Armed Forces is what the bloody civilians call RESTRUCTURING.
It is long overdue and over flogged as if it is such an impossibility, an attempt at which, will balkanize the country.
As a matter of fact, it is what is required to move our country out of the do l drums into modernity.
He cannot afford to passiton. We may end up without a country, as no country has been known to survive two civil wars. He can take better counsel in the appointments to the sensitive parts of his government. There are capable and loyal men and women from every village in the country.
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We are regaled every day with blood chilling stories of killings and pillaging of villages, sometimes towns in the North and Central Nigeria, and of recent talks of impending massacres and intensification of kidnapping coming our way in Southern States and the main protagonists of the disturbance is the Fulani herdsmen.
Sometimes we are told that they are Fulani mercenaries from outside Nigeria being sponsored by our Nigerian brothers.
The situation is so dare, that in collaboration with unexpected bad weather this year, a famine is imminent. Already we hear we are already borrowing grains from the ECOWAS countries, the immediate result of farmers being forced to abandon their farms. I suggest to him to read the riot act to the Fulani herdsmen, that it is not acceptable for any foreigner by whatever name called to enter our country illegally and molest our people. They are not welcome. We should not, by mistake of omission or commission allow our people to degenerate to self-help. It is a sure road to anarchy and perdition, which will not go away.
Let me thank you profusely for sorting out the pension scheme for the Army. We have stopped the culture of queuing quarterly in the Army barracks for recognition and documentation parade!
On a personal note General, may I appeal to you to consider two favours at your convenience? One, the rear guard squadron of the Engineer Brigade could be enabled to assist RANAO Osun State to complete their almost abandoned Secretariatat Osogbo. It has been roofed.
Two, will it be efficacious to engage any Engineer squadron that is a waiting deployment elsewhere to assist the State Government who are lucky to have them in the construction of rural roads in furtherance of your civil-military relations?. Farmers and local commuters will be most grateful. Chief of Army Staff, please accept our profound gratitude for this immensurable honour you have done us. It will stand out in the annals of Osun State history.
Your Excellency, Your Royal Highnesses, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you all.
General Alani Akinrinade 14th September 2020.
