The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has challenged President Muhammadu Buhari and his ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to expose the names of sponsors of terrorism in Nigeria.
The PDP alleged that the APC-led government has been providing official cover for terrorists and bandits pillaging the nation.
The main opposition party said its position was predicated on the declaration of the Buhari Presidency that it was not interested in making public, the names of six Nigerians reportedly sent to the Federal Government by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as sponsors of terrorism in the country.
In a press statement signed by its national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan on Tuesday, the PDP maintained that the decision of the APC to cover the identity of sponsors of mindless mass killings, maiming, rapping, kidnapping of Nigeria’s compatriots as well as the endless violent marauding of various communities, validates its stand that such individuals have connections with the APC.
The party stressed that 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 the country in the last six years under the APC.”
It noted that Nigerians could now see why the APC-led administration has failed to take decisive steps to tackle terrorism, why it prefers to negotiate with terrorists and even make case for them, instead of apprehending and prosecuting them, as witnessed in the beheading of rice farmers in Borno State.
Read Also: Is it not yet time to name and shame alleged sponsors of terrorism in Nigeria?
The party said it had always alerted of a connection between the APC and terrorists ravaging various parts of the nation and how the APC, as a party, had always failed to forcefully condemn acts of terrorism in the country.
It said Nigerians could 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.
“The APC has failed to account for the bandits, thugs and hoodlums it imported from neighbouring 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”, the statement read in part.
