The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday dared President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to expose sponsors of the Boko Haram insurgency and other criminal activities in Nigeria.
This was in reaction to statement by the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, that the federal government was not interested in naming and shaming sponsors of terrorism whose names were allegedly sent to the country by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government.
However, in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP said the refusal of the Buhari’s administration to expose sponsors of terrorism in Nigeria had confirmed its position that the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its government had been providing official cover for terrorists and bandits pillaging the country.
The statement read: “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.
“Nigerians can recall how the APC vehemently defended and still habours the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, a self-confessed terrorism apologist despite national outcry and demand for his sack.
“Also, the APC has failed to account for the bandits, thugs and hoodlums it imported from neighboring countries to unleash violence on Nigerians and muscle the 2019 elections.
“If the APC and its administration have nothing to cover, our party challenges them to 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.”
