APC Ask Goodluck To Postpone Campaigns Until Abducted School Girls Return

 

The All Progressives Congress has urged President Goodluck Jonathan to cancel the political rally planned for him by the Adamawa State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party slated for Tuesday.

In a statement signed by its interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Thursday, the APC said the President could not and should not be celebrating when over 200 schoolgirls were missing.

The party expressed the hope that the abducted girls would be released unharmed even before Tuesday, April 29th when the rally is expected to hold.

It however said until this happened, it would be insensitive and indecent for anyone, least of all the President who is the father of the nation, to engage in any celebratory outing under any guise.

According to the party, the President must not “repeat the faux pas” he committed less than 24 hours after 75 of his compatriots were killed in the Nyanya bombing.

It said, “All decent men and women were riled that President Jonathan went dancing at an illegal campaign stop in Kano and popping champagne corks at a birthday celebration in Ibadan when the smoke was yet to clear from the scene of the Nyanya bombing

‘’The President should not repeat the same mistake, if indeed he considered that to be one. He should see the missing girls as his own daughters and stop forthwith his illegal campaign rallies.’’

The APC said the ongoing bickering over the site of the rally in Adamawa, close to the scene of the sad abduction of the girls, is distracting attention from what should be a concerted national effort to find the girls and reunite them safely with their families.

“For a President whose grovelling aides have likened to Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama and other great leaders in a patently blasphemous campaign, he should take time to ask himself how Obama would have reacted to one missing girl from any school in the US, let alone over 200 abducted girls.

“Does President Jonathan honestly believe that Mandela, in his days as President, would have been campaigning when his compatriots are being daily bombed or abducted? Sycophancy has no limit, especially in an environment where many will disown even their children for pecuniary gains, but President Jonathan must rise above those who are justifying his insensitivity by saying the government cannot shut down so as not to give victory to Boko Haram,” it said.

Mohammed said the party was not saying that the government should shut down, but that the President must shut down all celebratory public outings and all political campaigns until the missing girls were safely found and returned to their homes.

The PDP could not be reached for comments. Calls to the mobile telephone number of the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, indicated that it was switched off.

A response to a text message sent to him was still being awaited at the time of filing this report.