PDP to presidency: Focus on addressing insecurity instead of attacking Ortom

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says President Muhammadu Buhari should do more on tackling insecurity instead of responding to criticism.

The presidency had, on Wednesday, tackled Samuel Ortom, governor of Benue state, who had in a recent interview accused Buhari of ethnic bias.

Ortom was accused by the presidency of “using language reminiscent of the Rwandan genocide”.

But reacting in a statement on Thursday, Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP’s spokesperson, said the president should focus on addressing the country’s security challenges.

“The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) asserts that the Buhari Presidency is responsible for spreading division and hatred among Nigerians and not Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom, as claimed in the Presidency’s press release,” the statement reads.

“PDP’s position is against the backdrop of an inciting hate statement issued by the Buhari Presidency in a bitter personal attack on Governor Ortom on Wednesday, in which the Presidency made allusions to genocides in Rwanda.

“The PDP recalls how the Buhari Presidency has been planting seeds of discord in the country with hate language, divisive tendencies and unconcealed nepotism, to the extent that our nation has become widely divided along all fault lines.

“Moreover, Nigerians can recall how Mr. President tagged those whom he believed did not vote for him; how he described citizens as “dot in a circle,” as well as the hate language that attracted sanctions by Twitter.

“It is rather alarming that instead of taking steps to address the killings in Benue state as well as the worsening insecurity, carnages, banditry, terrorism and imminent humanitarian crisis in the country, the Buhari Presidency is thinking of Rwandan Genocide while exposing its deep-seated detestation for Governor Ortom.”

Ologbondiyan added that the president should “wake up from his slumber and decisively address the worsening insecurity in the country”.