A private legal practitioner and a former Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Gusau Branch (covering Zamfara State), Barr. Bello Galadi has rejected the excuse advanced by President Muhammadu Buhari that haze was responsible for his inability to visit Zamfara State as scheduled.

Galadi stated that at his interview with this medium in Gusau.

He declared that Nigerian leaders are avoiding roads due to the high risk involved in traveling by road, as such, they have no idea as to the conditions of the roads because they don’t use them and they are less interested in tackling the insecurity on the roads.

Barr. Galadi who was reacting to the aborted presidential visit of Muhammad Buhari to Zamfara State last Thursday, 27th January, 2022 said the President was not properly advised, he should have proceeded to Gusau by road, which is barely 200 kilometers, put the night there, use the opportunity to visit and condole with the victims at their localities, as he did when he was soliciting for their votes in 2015 and 2019.

“our leaders want to avoid experiencing the difficulties we the common people are encountering especially with the condition of our major roads which are all at dilapidated stages and this is why they always feel comfortable traveling by air”.

“They want to avoid familiarizing themselves with the insecurity situation in the country because if they are traveling by roads, they would have the opportunity to feel what the common people are feeling”.

“In the political history of Nigeria, there was no leader that enjoyed massive support of the common man like Buhari. He was voted and supported by the common man. If he cannot pay a simple condolence visit to the common man, whose life is being threatened by insecurity on daily basis, who is hungry with no hope for food, with no clear agenda on his education and with blur future, then the relationship/ bond between him and the common man has failed irretrievably.

Barr. Galadi insisted that the President is morally obligated to visit Zamfara State to condole with the people who have been devastated by insecurity. Anything short of that is a failure on the part of the President.

“Paying regular visit to places affected by this insecurity is to avail the President the opportunity to access direct information on what the common people are facing, and it would ginger him to act based on direct information received”.