All Progressives Congress, APC, has accused the President Goodluck Jonathan administration of sponsoring ethnic militias to foment trouble before, during and after the forthcoming general elections.
APC also said that the N9bn recently paid out to some ex-militants and ethnic militias is aimed at mobilising them to scuttle the polls.
In a statement issued in Lagos yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the protests by MASSOB last week, seeking the sack of the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega was orchestrated by the administration as part of its continuing efforts to sabotage the elections.
It said the next group that has been mobilised to protest against Jega and the use of Card Reader is the Oodua Peoples Congress, OPC, which is also a beneficiary of the N9bn payout ostensibly for pipeline protection, but in reality to prepare the ethnic militias for their reprehensible role in scuttling the elections.
APC said more ethnic militias are to be enlisted by the Jonathan administration to continue the protest against Jega and the Card Reader, in order to give the impression that Nigerians want the INEC chairman sacked and are also against the use of card reader.
The party expressed sadness that a President, who inherited a united nation has done everything he can to divide the country along ethnic and religious lines, including patronising ethnic militias, who serve no other purpose than to champion sectional interests at the expense of national unity.
It wondered why President Jonathan would pay N9bn to a handful of people at a time of great economic downturn and falling Naira, as well as in a situation in which many states cannot even afford to pay their workers because of dwindling allocation from the Federation Account.
“A profligate government that has been bribing people with dollars and ferrying huge funds around practically to buy votes has outdone itself by paying out all of N9bn to a few Nigerians, with less than three weeks to the elections.
“Shortly after the payment, some self-serving groups started organising protests that, for all intents and purposes, are being orchestrated to scuttle the polls. This is a shameful show by the Federal Government,” APC said.
But, the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organisation, PDPPCO, dismissed the APC claim as false.
Director of Media and Publicity of PDPPCO, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, who reacted in Abuja yesterday, also justified the employment and compensation given to families of the victims of the Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS, tragedy, saying that the APC’s criticism of the gesture was unfortunate.
“Once again, Lai Mohammed has indulged in lies on behalf of his lying party, the APC. It is not true that the PDP or the Federal Government is sponsoring ethnic militias. It is also not true that N9bn has been allocated for that purpose.
“It is rather the APC that has consistently supported and sponsored the Boko Haram both in substance and in their utterances over the last few years. This recourse to telling a lie every day by the opposition party will not in any way assist them in achieving their objectives.
“We will remain focused on the issues. We will talk about their weaknesses and we will also talk about the achievements of President Goodluck Jonathan on why it is that it is important that he is re-elected back into power on March 28. That is our focus,” he said.
He denied claim that PDP and the Federal Government were trying to garner cheap political profit from the calamity that befell some young Nigerians with the employment and compensations to the families of the affected victims of the NIS employment tragedy.
Fani-Kayode said: “It is not the PDP that feeds off the blood of other individuals; it is not the PDP that is a party of ritualists and cultists; it is not the PDP that encourages and supports terrorist organisations that have slaughtered about 35,000 people over the last three years.
“Mr. President’s gesture concerning the victims of the calamity that took place last year when all those young people were killed was a noble gesture and was simply an acknowledgment of the fact that these people died under very, very sad circumstances.
“It was simply an attempt to alleviate the suffering and pain of the families of those that were killed and no right-thinking person will read any other meaning to that.
“It was a reflection of the compassion and the inherent goodness that reside in Mr. President’s heart and I think every patriotic and right-thinking Nigerian should commend him for that and not talk about feeding off people’s calamity. We are not cultists in the PDP. It is the APC that is filled with cultists and ritualists.”
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