KILLINGS: Stop these ridiculous excuses, protect your citizens, Atiku tells Buhari

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has called on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to be alive to its primary responsibility, which is the protection of citizens.

He said that those in government, who are expected to tackle the issue of insecurity in Nigeria, should stop making contradictory and ridiculous excuses and engaging in diversionary finger-pointing on the matter.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential aspirant stated this in a Democracy Day statement he signed and made available to newsmen through his Media Office in Abuja on Monday.

“…as we celebrate, my fellow patriots, let us spare some time to reflect and to mourn all those murdered in the ongoing needless killings across our dear country.

“These Nigerians have been killed in the continuing murderous rampage of criminal elements across the country but especially in Borno and Yobe, and the Benue River Valley, stretching from Adamawa through Taraba to the confluence of Kogi and Benue, and including Nasarawa, Plateau, Southern Kaduna, and Zamfara.

“Others have been killed by armed robbers, kidnappers , cattle rustlers and other marauding bandits. The killings have even extended to sacred places of worship where innocent Imams and Christian clergy and worshipers are slaughtered.”

Atiku decried that killings by herdsmen have continued for a long time and warned that it must be stopped before it gets totally out of hand.

According to him, only the government could stop “these senseless killings in Nigeria to avoid major and further damage to the fabric of our fragile unity.”

READ ALSO: Buhari highlights his govt’s plan to tackle incessant killings

He cautioned that the recent history of Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi and the Central African Republic, among others, should be a strident warning to all of us, “especially those in government whose primary responsibility is the protection of the citizens, but who have been dithering, making contradictory and ridiculous excuses and engaging in diversionary finger-pointing.”

The former vice president added that Nigerians have mourned souls of their citizens lost to terror attacks enough to a level to learn that it is insufficient that the Federal Government has an exclusive statutory mandate in providing security for them.

 

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