The national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has urged the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to search its conscience on the killings in Benue, Rivers and Kaduna States.
In a statement yesterday by its spokesman, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, the party described the massacre of defenseless Nigerians in the three states as extremely wicked.
It also flayed as inexcusable, the failure of President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to act upon early danger signs and threats by taking cautionary measures that could have averted the killings, particularly in Benue State.
The opposition party further lamented what it termed the insensitivity of the APC Presidency, which it said, reacted to the ugly incidents only after the PDP and well-meaning Nigerians called them to task.
The PDP also called on the Presidency to do some soul-searching with regards to its silence and loud indifference whenever citizens fall under such 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 in 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 manners most indifferent, nearly unconcerned and almost without compassion?
“Indeed, the 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”.
The party urged the government to show commitment by ensuring that the perpetrators of these killings were brought to book and made to face the full wrath of the law.
It also urged the military and other security agencies to leave no stone unturned in the fishing out the perpetrators.
“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 added.