The Peoples Democratic Party has described the recent massacre in Benue, Rivers, Kaduna and other states as extremely wicked and horrifying.
While commiserating with the families of the victims, the opposition party asked the presidency and the ruling All Progressives Congress to search their conscience over the tragedies.
In a statement yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbodiyan, PDP said it was inexcusable that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC Federal Government failed to take measures that could have averted the killings, particularly in Benue State.
There were attacks on communities in Guma and Logo local government areas of Benue state between Monday and Tuesday which led to the death of at least 20 persons and many others injured.
Before the attacks, gunmen in Rivers State opened fire on people returning from church in the early hours of New Year Day.
Also in Kaduna State, some persons were killed on Monday night in separate attacks on two villages in Sanga Local Government Area.
Following the attacks in Benue,angry youth and residents marched in protest on the street on Wednesday in Makurdi, the state capital. Some residents were seen fleeing the state with their properties.
PDP said the APC and the Presidency reacted to the incidents only after the PDP and well-meaning Nigerians took them to task.
“The height of insensitivity of the APC Presidency became glaring in its reaction, wherein a media aide issued some apathetic and indifferent lines without any precise commitment towards bringing the perpetrators to book and assurances of adequate security to forestall a reoccurrence,” the PDP said in the statement.
It called on the Presidency to have some soul-searching with regard to its silence and indifference whenever citizens fall under horrifying attacks.
“What a way to start the new year? The sheer insensitivity of the APC Government has continued to cause our nation a lot of pain and sorrow.
“Is it not only a careless and inept leadership like the APC government that will ignore the danger signs in any part of the country and leave its citizens defenseless, just to be massacred by marauders?
“If the APC Federal Government had effectively acted upon the danger signs and had provided adequate security in flash points across the country, particularly in Benue state, north central and Southern Kaduna area, this massacre of Nigerians, who were already impoverished by the APC’s misrule, could have been prevented.
“Is it not a tragic trajectory of governance that while the APC Presidency was busy basking on its orchestrated New Year self-praise and empty promises, bandits were having a field day mowing down citizens in cold blood?
“Is it not also an irony that when the government was prompted to react to the spate of killings, all its officials could do was to respond in a most indifferent, nearly unconcerned and almost without compassion manner?
“Indeed, PDP aligns with Nigerians that the APC and the Presidency should have a serious soul searching on their clear indifference towards the persistent killings and maiming of citizens by bandits who constantly invade communities, slaughter the people and walk away with blood of our compatriots in their hands.
“We insist that for the nation to be reassured, the Federal Government must show commitment by ensuring that the perpetrators of these killings are immediately brought to book and made to face the full wrath of the law.
“Nigeria belongs to all of us; every citizen has a right to life and no man should take the life of another for any reason or under any guise whatsoever the statement said.
Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday demanded the immediate resignation of the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi from the Federal Executive Council.
The PDP, which premised its call on the appointment of Amaechi as the Director-General (DG) of President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2019 re-election campaign, also accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of being insensitive to the plight of Nigerians.
“If APC has any strand of dignity, then Amaechi must resign as the Minister of Transportation having been appointed and already functioning as the DG of President Buhari’s Campaign. “Under the constitution of Nigeria, Mr. Amaechi cannot combine the job of a Minister of the Federal Republic with another responsibility such as the DG of a campaign organisation.
“Amaechi’s action in accepting the job while still holding office as Minister is in clear breach of the oath of office and the oath of allegiance which he swore in line with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). He should therefore resign his office as minister with immediate effect”, read a statement signed by the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbodiyan.
The party stated that Amaechi, perhaps in his desperation for recognition, has already begun to function in the capacity as mobiliser for Buhari’s second term, adding that, he had already held meetings with some of the governors elected on the platform of the APC.
It recalled that when as a serving Minister of Works, Chief Tony Anenih was appointed to head the campaign of then President Olusegun Obasanjo, the former resigned his cabinet appointment.
Accusing the incumbent administration of being insensitive to the plight of Nigerians, the party expressed shock that the APC is more interested in setting up an electoral structure for a second term when Nigerians are dying daily of hunger and poverty while others are being slaughtered in their communities by marauders across the country.
“Is it not instructive for Nigerians to now know that the APC has not the littlest agenda on governance for our people and do not have the interest of Nigerians at heart? They have shown that all they care for is their selfish political and pecuniary interests”, the party said.