National Publicity Secretary, All Progressives Congress, Alhaji Lai Mohammed
The
All Progressives Congress has described as callous, morbid and
insensitive, the comments made by President Goodluck Jonathan that the
Chibok girls are still alive and that the Boko Haram sect would have
displayed their bodies if they had been killed.
In a statement issued in Lagos by the
National Publicity Secretary, APC, Lai Mohammed, on Saturday, the party
said it found the comment deeply offensive to human sensibilities rather
than providing hope and succour for the traumatised parents of the
girls.
The opposition party pointed out that a
key role of a president in times of tribulations and tragedies is, “to
offer hope and be the Consoler-in-Chief, not to make statements that
will deepen the suffering and sorrow of victims.”
APC said Jonathan should have spoken on
the basis of actionable intelligence, “not some twisted, melancholic and
offensive logic.” The party said the statement confirmed the fears of
parents of the girls and Nigerians concerning the fate of the girls, who
had now been held in captivity for over 300 days, without the
government rescuing them.
APC stated that all the parents of the
girls as well as all concerned people around the world wanted to know
was what the Jonathan-led administration was doing to bring the girls
home safely and as soon as possible.
The party urged Jonathan to borrow a
leaf from his Chadian counterpart, “who came across as being very
presidential in his comments on Shekau by saying, ‘It is in Abubakar
Shekau’s interest to surrender; we know where he is. If he refuses to
give himself up, he will suffer the same fate as his comrades.’
APC said the Chadian President’s
statement also contradicted the earlier claim by the Nigerian
authorities that Shekau had been killed at least twice, the last of
which was backed up with a ‘pictorial evidence’.
The statement added, ‘’The Shekau that
President Deby was referring to is the same Shekau that the Jonathan-led
administration claimed to have killed at least twice, and the same
Shekau the same administration is now seeking to capture alive.
Responding to Lai Mohammed’s statement
on the Chibok girls, Director of Media and Publicity of the PDPPCO, Mr.
Femi Fani-Kayode said, “Whilst the majority of Nigerians are overjoyed
by the fact that the President has given us hope by saying that the
girls are still alive. Mohammed and the APC are not happy.
“The truth is that they do not want
those girls to be found and neither do they care about their welfare or
their safety. We say this because this was a man, and a party that
complained and protested at the fact that Boko Haram was proscribed by
the Federal Government last year.
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