Buhari needs ‘serious soul searching’ for ‘inept’ handling of recent killings- PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has berated President Muhammadu Buhari and his All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government for failure to secure Nigerians affected by the recent spate of killings in the country across Rivers, Kaduna and Benue states.

The party commiserated with the families of the victims and asked the Presidency and the ruling APC to “have a serious soul searching” over its handling of the tragedies.

In a statement on Thursday by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbodiyan, PDP said it was inexcusable that the federal government failed to take steps that could have prevented the killings particularly in Benue State.

PDP said the APC and the Presidency reacted to the incidents only after the PDP and well-meaning Nigerians called them out.

Read also: 2019: My agenda is simple, APC/PDP must not win any election —Ezekwesili

“The height of insensitivity of the APC Presidency became glaring in its reaction, wherein a media aide issued some apathetic and indifferent lines without any precise commitment towards bringing the perpetrators to book and assurances of adequate security to forestall a reoccurrence.

“What a way to start the new year? The sheer insensitivity of the APC Government has continued to cause our nation a lot of pain and sorrow.

“Is it not only a careless and inept leadership like the APC government that will ignore the danger signs in any part of the country and leave its citizens defenseless, just to be massacred by marauders?

“If the APC Federal Government had effectively acted upon the danger signs and had provided adequate security in flash points across the country, particularly in Benue state, north central and Southern Kaduna area, this massacre of Nigerians, who were already impoverished by the APC’s misrule, could have been prevented.

“Is it not a tragic trajectory of governance that while the APC Presidency was busy basking on its orchestrated New Year self-praise and empty promises, bandits were having a field day mowing down citizens in cold blood?

“Is it not also an irony that when the government was prompted to react to the spate of killings, all its officials could do was to respond in a most indifferent, nearly unconcerned and almost without compassion manner?

“Indeed, PDP aligns with Nigerians that the APC and the Presidency should have a serious soul searching on their clear indifference towards the persistent killings and maiming of citizens by bandits who constantly invade communities, slaughter the people and walk away with blood of our compatriots in their hands.

“We insist that for the nation to be reassured, the Federal Government must show commitment by ensuring that the perpetrators of these killings are immediately brought to book and made to face the full wrath of the law.

“Nigeria belongs to all of us; every citizen has a right to life and no man should take the life of another for any reason or under any guise whatsoever, the statement said.”

“The PDP commiserated with the families of the victims, and directed its members to assist and continue to pray for them”, the PDP said in the statement.

 

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