Group accuses PDP of politicising national security

The National Democratic Front, a leading pro-democracy group, has berated the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over calls for the resignation of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The group also kicked against the demand that service chiefs should resign, describing it as inglorious attempts to drag them into politics.

The group said it seems PDP has forgotten its locust years and suddenly woken up to start hauling tantrums on those who have helped to savage the situation.

Bolaji Abdulkadir, the group’s secretary general, said this known in a statement in Abuja on Thursday.

“The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday called on President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the service chiefs citing the bandit attacks that left several people dead in Zamfara state,” the statement read.

“On the surface this demand by Nigeria’s opposition party sounds logical and is even the natural order of things in certain climes. But to the extent that this call came from the PDP it is suspect and must be evaluated against the backdrop of the antecedents of this party and its chieftains.

“Let us be clear, what happened in Zamfara state is not acceptable under any dispensation. But the cry of the PDP over Zamfara is similar to the popular adage of a witch that has killed a baby at night crying during the day. It has no place in the modern world.

“The party is simply trying to benefit from the blood that has been spilled in Zamfara by trying to use a tragedy to achieve goals that threaten the nation worse than the bandits that they have already unleashed on the people. We are going to raise two instances that should make Nigerians go after PDP with all the venom they can muster.

“First, there had been allegations before now that the PDP teamed up with disgruntled elements from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to unleash the bandits on the people of the state in order to disrupt the peace before the election. It is suspicious that the same bandits somehow disappeared into thin air when these same politicians were attending to their primary elections. PDP should explain to Nigerians how this is so and why the same bandits suddenly surfaced now that its members are citing insecurity as one of their campaign points against the present government.

“Secondly, there has been allegations in the past that the PDP is eager to see the service chiefs fired so that they can compromise their replacements to compromise our democracy after the this party loses the general elections. Could the PDP have then facilitated the killing of innocent people in Zamfara state simply to get the excuse to demand for the sack of the service chiefs? The party’s obsession with getting the service chiefs fired continues to lend credence to the claim that they are desirous of a leadership change in the military in order to carry out a coup after the elections.

“We find it the height of insolence that the PDP could grandstand as it is doing. It is common knowledge that the present government would have much better if it did not have to clean up the mess it created. If the country had run on the correct template in the years that the PDP was in power there would have been no need for the military to be deployed for what ordinarily should be the jurisdiction of civil police. It is therefore sheer shallowness to be assessing the effectiveness of the military service chiefs based on assignments that ordinarily is not theirs.”