Stop mocking the dead, political parties hit PDP over comments on insecurity

The Association of Political Parties in Nigeria (APPN) has cautioned the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to “desist from mocking the dead by politicising and trivialising national security in a bid to gain public sympathy”.

On Tuesday, Lai Mohammed, minister of information, asked the PDP to apologise for allegedly misleading the nation with unfounded security breach against the party and Atiku Abubakar, its presidential candidate.

This followed Mohammed’s assurances that the nation was safe for the presidential inauguration.

In reaction, the APPN advised the opposition to accept the part it played in the creation of security challenges facing the country even as it continues to worsen the situation.

Achille Idakwo, national chairman of APPN,  asked the PDP to hide its head in shame for the “problems it caused the nation”.

“Even as we speak, PDP politicians continue to arm youths as their own idea of empowerment. Some PDP governors are known to have created militias, arm and fund them for sinister motives. Only that the youths recruited as militias often divert the weapons given to them to run kidnap business and cattle rustling, past times that have triggered cycle of violence that now appear perpertual,” he said.

“APPN remains mindful of the position of the PDP global leader and presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, whose unique selling proposition to his prospective American backer is that killings will continue in Nigeria if President Muhammadu Buhari is allowed to assume the mandate he was widely given by Nigerians at this year’s General Elections. This satanic assertion is on top of other criminal enterprises like the PDP kitting militants with army uniform in Rivers state, hiring killer bandits to cause mayhem in the northwest and continuing to finance Boko Haram in the northeast.

“The PDP can therefore not be the very root and cause of insecurity in the land and then wake up to sympathize with Nigerians on the same ugly plague that they brought upon the people. It is a case of shedding crocodile tears, which Nigerians will have none of. The fact that the federal government is being measured in the way it is managing the security breaches being caused by the PDP does not translate into absolution for the killer party.

“Our position on this matter is that the country must hurry to address the problems caused by and is till being escalated by the PDP. We should, ordinarily, be calling for the immediate arrest and prosecution of those that are known to be behind the security breaches in the country but we realize that such decisive action would be followed by cries of the opposition is being hounded. We therefore resorted to calling on the, their allies and sponsors behind the killings in the country to halt their attack on Nigerians. It is the last window of opportunity for the PDP to redirect itself to thinking about the interest of the masses even though it is a concept that alien to it.

“APPN is consequently dissociating itself from the call by the PDP as only the that party can explain to Nigerians the true identity of those it has recruited to kill Nigerians and cause secuirity breaches in the land. The PDP is also the one entity that can explain the motives behind the killings and correctly tell Nigerians when peace will return to the country.”