The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described as wicked, the alleged attempt by President Muhammadu Buhari to use the heartbreaking abduction of schoolgirls in Dapchi, Yobe State, to score cheap political points.
The party expressed shock that President Buhari could do so right before grief-stricken parents.
The PDP also said the president’s comparison of the Dapchi incident to similar heart-rending abduction of schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State, in 2014, appeared pregnant with meaning, especially in the face of “pervading speculations and conspiracy theorems that trailed the Dapchi abduction and its associated conflicting reports.”
The PDP, in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, on Thursday, said the comments by the president as well as his aloofness to the people in the troubled states, so far visited, had all confirmed that the belated visits were mere afterthoughts orchestrated for political reasons and not out of any genuine concern for the victims.
The leading opposition party also noted that more disheartening was the attempts by the President to politicise killings in troubled states and particularly the abduction of Dapchi daughters, right in the presence of their distraught parents.
Said PDP: “When the President went to Taraba, he made a morbid comparison of more people being killed in one state than the other, as if human life is valued in figures. This time, he went on an ill-conceived political ego venture and self-praise with the abduction of our Dapchi daughters.
“The PDP agrees no less with Nigerians that this development is worrisome. This is particularly so given the sequence of events that trailed the incident.
“Nigerians can recall how the Presidency deployed a team of officials led by the minister of information and culture to Yobe State, ostensibly for a media stunt. What followed was the release of a false rescue report by yet to be ascertained individuals or agency and statements by sponsored groups praising the Presidency for illusionary ‘swift rescue operations’ while the abductors were fleeing deeper into unknown recesses.”
PDP said among other things, Nigerians needed to know if there was a heinous script in which innocent daughters in Dapchi had become pawns.
“These are some of the reasons we urged the National Assembly to institute an independent inquest into the Dapchi abduction and make its findings public.
Furthermore, we still wonder why the parents of the Dapchi girls were not allowed enough opportunity to have direct interaction with the President during the visit to Yobe State,” the party stated.
The party said it charged the Presidency and the APC to understand that “profane gimmicks cannot help their doomed re-election bid as Nigerians have seen through their lies and propaganda and are now rallying with the repositioned platform of the PDP to rescue our dear nation from the painful misrule of the APC.”
