The Presidency yesterday chided former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar over his remarks on the security situation in the country.
It said some of his past utterances contributed to the escalation of insurgent activities in the North.
The
presidential aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress,
APC, had at a press conference on Monday in Abuja lamented the security
situation in the north eastern part of Nigeria.
He stated that
the Federal Government had not done enough to tackle the Boko Haram
sect, adding that President Goodluck Jonathan may go down in history as
the only Nigerian Commander-in-Chief to have ever lost territory to
terrorists.
Responding, Special Assistant to the President on
Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe, accused Atiku of contributing to the
insecurity ravaging the land via a comment he made four years ago.
Speaking
in Abuja at the Public Affairs Forum, a programme organised by his
office for ministers to give account of their stewardship, Okupe
recalled that in the build up to the 2011 general elections, Atiku
quoted a statement by late US President John Kennedy that “those who
make peaceful change inevitable will make violent change inevitable”.
He said the former vice president made the remark at the Northern Stakeholders’ Forum meeting in 2010.
Continuing,
Okupe described as “unfortunate”, a situation where those who
desperately stoked the fire of insurgency were now laying the blame on
the shoulders of a government already working hard to put out the fire.
He
noted that it was lack of patriotism that made Atiku to talk down on
the nation’s military, which he hopes to lead, if elected President of
the Federal Republic.
The presidential aide wondered why the
former vice president, who is from Adamawa State, one of the states
under constant attacks by Boko Haram, has not yet taken any hard
position on terrorism.
He advised the presidential aspirant to
learn from political leaders in other climes who drop the toga of
partisanship in moments of national crisis by supporting their
governments to raise the hope of citizens and defeat enemies of
civilisation.
The presidential aide said President Goodluck
Jonathan would not be distracted by negative comments from Atiku and a
few others, whose only concern was politics rather than nation building.
Okupe
assured that his principal was working hard with security chiefs and
community stakeholders to restore peace to the northern part of the
country in the shortest possible time.
0 comments:
Post a Comment