CUPP wants Buhari to apologize to Nigerians over Garba Shehu’s remark on Borno killings

The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has condemned a statement credited to the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, Malam Garba Shehu, on the killing of farmers in Borno State by Boko Haram.

Shehu was quoted to have said that the beheaded farmers in Zabarmari, Borno State, did not take permission from the military before going to their rice farms where they were attacked and mercilessly hacked to death by Boko Haram terrorists.

In its response in a statement on Tuesday by its co-national spokesman, Comrade Mark Adebayo, the CUPP described the remark by Shehu as “a colossal and disastrous exhibition of the mindset of a government that lacks the basic minimum feelings for humanity and a display of a dead conscience only comparable to the beastly criminalities of the terrorists that carried out the heinous bloodshed”.

READ ALSO: FANI-KAYODE TO BUHARI: Declare state of emergency over killing of rice farmers in Borno

The statement further read, “That statement by a man (Shehu) who is the mouthpiece of the president of this country is a testimony to the I-don’t-care attitudes of this government to the sufferings of the mass of Nigerians by a presidency that specializes in blaming victims of terrorism for being killed or kidnapped same way it blames farmers and other citizens as provoking killer herdsmen to kill them and destroy their farms, towns and villages because they have encroached on grazing routes.

“The latest outburst by the president’s spokesman against the victims of a Boko Haram that the Buhari presidency falsely claimed to have ‘technically defeated’ was not only irresponsible, but utterly unsavory, inhuman, insensitive and reprehensible.”

It said that the statement by Shehu required President Buhari to “personally apologise” to Nigerians and families of the victims of this senseless massacre of about 43 hard-working Nigerians.

“If you cannot empathise with the people, at least don’t aggravate their misfortunes,” the CUPP said.

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