NATIONAL: Buhari ill-advised not to appear before reps– Afe Babalola

FOUNDER of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), Aare Afe Babalola SAN has said President Buhari should not have heeded the advice of those who asked him not to appear before the National Assembly as he had earlier promised.

The legal luminary said Buhari ought to have appeared before the National Assembly to explain his administration’s efforts in addressing the growing insecurity in the country.

Babalola said this against the background of the invitation extended to Buhari by the members of the lower chamber fortnight ago which the president, however, spurned.

The president had earlier fixed last week Thursday to appear at the chamber, but the visit was cancelled following advice from the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, that the lawmakers lacked the constitutional power to invite the President to the house.
Some governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) also told Buhari not to appear before the lawmakers ”who were out and determined to embarrass the president.”
But the Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Babalola noted that the invitation by the lawmaker was not out of place considering the series of killings and other heinous crimes against hapless citizens.
He said that the president was wrongly advised in shunning the country’s lawmakers which are the representatives of the people.
Babalola spoke at the weekend in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti state capital after being honoured by the Akure branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) as the grand patron and the naming of the permanent structure of the branch after him.

Babalola deplored the spate of killings and kidnappings in the country, saying the government must be alive to its responsibility of protecting lives and property so as to allow the development of the country

According to him, “The reason why we are together in the society is that we want our property and lives to be secured. Today, we have a crisis over security and there is virtually no day you read the papers that you won’t see people being reported killed or kidnapped, it has become the order of the day as if human beings are not important anymore.

“If the parliament invites the president, I believe he ought to have appeared by way of courtesies to the lawmakers. The National Assembly is the legislative body of this country; they make the law and they expect the President to carry out the law. I believe if I were in his position, I would have gone. Fortunately, he wanted to go, he told the whole world that he was going to appear but he was ill-advised not to go.”