Former Head of State, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), has accused the President Goodluck Jonathan administration of playing to the gallery on security, a reason he argued has made the Boko Haram insurgency assume a dangerous dimension in the last four years.Reacting to a statement by Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, accusing him of playing politics with the insurgency and unpatriotically refusing to join hands with Federal Government to address the problem until he is elected president, Buhari said he is “disheartened by the grotesque characterization of his personality” by PDP.
He insisted that Boko Haram will be a thing of the past if he is elected, adding that he remains a patriot who played crucial roles in getting Jonathan sworn-in as acting president in 2010.
In a statement by Engr. Rotimi Fashakin, the presidential aspirant on the platform of All Progressives Congress, APC, said he is “horrified by the bare-faced falsehood, insidious fallacy and scurrilous untruth contained in the statement of the ruling party, just for the purpose of cheap political agenda, bearing similarities with the despicable Emperor Nero, who was fiddling while Rome burned.
“It is an irreproachable fact that Boko Haram insurgency has assumed this intolerably dangerous dimension in the last four years, because this regime has chosen to play devious politics with a national calamity.
“The same known founders of the dreaded insurgency group have become the confidants of the President. On September 9, in Djamena, Chad, Nigeria’s President, Chadian President and one of these elements were photographed in a meeting together.
“At that time, APC, through its spokesman, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said inter-alia: ‘This action by President Jonathan confirms what APC has always believed.
“‘That the President either knows more than he is willing to admit on the issue of those who are behind the Boko Haram insurgency or he is willing to sacrifice the battle against terrorism on the altar of political expediency’.
“While Nigerian villages, schools and markets were easily overrun with maniacal fury by the insurgent group because of inadequate security, this same individual enjoyed very large armada of security men provided by the government of Jonathan.
“Aside his show of undisguised patriotic love for Nigeria in his glorious career in the Nigerian military, General Buhari has always shown statesman-like interventions at critical times in the nation’s current democratic order.
In January 14, 2010, whilst a tiny cabal tried to hold the entire nation to ransom, thus preventing the Vice President Goodluck Jonathan from assuming the role of Acting President, General Muhammadu Buhari led a delegation of patriotic Nigerians to the Senate, with a passionate plea to the Upper Legislative chamber to do the needful for the continuity of governance in the country.
“In May 8, after the abduction of over 270 school girls in Chibok, Borno State, and as part of rallying the citizenry towards cooperation with the Federal Government in the fight against Insurgency, General Buhari wrote inter-alia:
“‘Let these people know that the entire civilized world is united against their terrorist act. We are grateful to the world for standing by Nigeria at this trying time. We hope and pray that the young ladies will be reunited with their respective families in the days to come.’
Preaches unity
“Now is not the time to play politics. Now is also not the time to trade blames and amplify our ideological differences.
“The unity of Nigeria is not negotiable and nothing should divide us as a people.
“Without a doubt, PDP leaders are awfully wrong in believing that their blinkered view of the nation’s affairs, due to the affliction of selective amnesia, can detract from the determination of Nigerians to use their votes to effect the desired change in the leadership of the nation in February 2015.”
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