PDP to presidency: Name sponsors of terrorism if you’re not shielding them

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the Buhari administration of shielding sponsors of terrorism and banditry in the country. 

The opposition party was reacting to comments by Femi Adesina, presidential spokesperson, that the federal government is not interested in naming and shaming sponsors of terrorism.

This was after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) placed six Nigerians on its terror list.

While speaking during an interview on Channels Television on Monday, Adesina said rather than name and shame the sponsors of terrorism, the federal government will focus on the prosecution of the suspects.

But in a statement issued on Tuesday, Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP spokesperson, said the Buhari-led government has “always failed to forcefully condemn acts of terrorism in our country”.

“The refusal by the Buhari Presidency to expose the names of sponsors of terrorism in Nigeria vindicates its position that the All Progressives Congress (APC) government has been providing official cover for terrorists and bandits pillaging the nation,” Ologbondiyan said.

“The PDP position is predicated on the declaration of the Buhari Presidency that it was not interested in making public, the names of six Nigerians reportedly sent to the federal government by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as sponsors of terrorism in our country.

“The PDP holds that the decision of the APC-led government to cover the identity of sponsors of mindless mass killings, maiming, raping, kidnapping of our compatriots as well as the endless violent marauding of our communities under the APC watch, validates our stand that such individuals have connections with the APC.

“This unpatriotic stance by the Buhari Presidency raises serious national anxieties of high-level complicity in the administration and further explains the reported compromising of our security system in the escalated killings and acts of terrorism in our country in the last six years under the APC.

“Nigerians can see why the APC-led administration has failed to take decisive steps to tackle terrorism, why it prefers to negotiate with terrorists and even makes case for them, instead of apprehending and prosecuting them, as witnessed in the beheading of rice farmers in Borno state.

“The PDP had always alerted of a connection between the APC and terrorists ravaging various parts of our nation and how the APC, as a party, had always failed to forcefully condemn acts of terrorism in our country”.

The PDP said if the APC-led administration has nothing to cover, it should immediately “publish the names of the sponsors of terrorism given to it by the UAE, instead of this vexatious desperation to provide official cover for them”.