THE All Progressives Congress (APC) is appalled by President Goodluck Jonathan’s recent statement that the Chibok girls are still alive because Boko Haram would have displayed their bodies if they had been killed.
The party says the president’s comment is callous, morbid and insensitive.
In a statement yesterday in Lagos, the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the party found the comment “deeply offensive to human sensibilities rather than providing hope and succour for the traumatised parents of the girls.”
A key role of presidents everywhere in times of tribulations and tragedies, the APC pointed out “is to offer hope and be the Consoler-in-Chief, not to make statements that will deepen the suffering and sorrow of victims.”
The party said: “one would have expected a president to speak on the basis of actionable intelligence, not some twisted, melancholic and offensive logic,” adding that the president’s statement played on the fears of the parents of the girls and indeed of all Nigerians concerning the fate of the girls, “who have now been held in captivity for over 300 days, with an impotent government unable to rescue them.”
It said all that the parents of the girls as well as all concerned people around the world want to know is what the Jonathan Administration is doing to bring the girls home safely and as soon as possible, not a depressing statement about their bodies being displayed via a video by Shekau if they had been killed.
APC said President Jonathan should borrow a leaf from his Chadian counterpart, who came across as being very presidential in his comments on Shekau, in which he said: ‘’It is in Abubakar Shekau’s interest to surrender, we know where he is. If he refuses to give himself up, he will suffer the same fate as his comrades.’’
It said the Chadian President’s statement also contradicted the earlier claim by the Nigerian authorities that Shekau had been killed at least twice, the last of which was backed up with a ‘pictorial evidence’.
The APC said: ‘’The Shekau that President Deby was referring to is the same Shekau that the Jonathan-led Administration claimed to have killed at least twice, and the same Shekau the same Administration is now seeking to capture alive.
‘’Mr. President (Jonathan), how many Shekaus do you want to kill or capture? Or is there a Shekau that is known only to your Administration?’’ APC queried.
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