The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity Malam Garba Shehu, in a statement on Monday, described Secondus’ letter as preposterous and comical, blasting the opposition party for accusing the Federal Government of destroying Nigeria’s democracy.
He said Secondus and all other politicians against whom the anti-corruption agencies had ongoing investigations should be assured that “it is only a matter of time before the law catches up with them and makes them pay for the grief their mismanagement of the past has caused and is still causing Nigerians.
Shehu, who alleged that Nigerians suffered because of “the poison sowed by the PDP”, said the war against corruption, “for which many more politicians may soon be docked”, could not be misrepresented as an attack on human rights.
He said Secondus should not try to mislead the UN, maintaining that “Nigerian politicians at all levels have been used to dispensing with state funds in whatever manner they please, and to have someone, an administration, finally saying, ‘No. It doesn’t matter how big or important you think you are; the law must come against you…’ That is not something they are used to at all. For the PDP, as it has now emerged, national security was the major source of their funding.”
Shehu said if the public were privy to some of the facts and figures on corruption that Buhari and the anti-corruption agencies were, they would understand the passion driving the determination to nail “these callous men and stop them in their corrupt tracks.”
According to Shehu, “PDP’s lecture on democracy and the rule of law coming from a party with a tradition of undemocratic rule is a desperate attempt to pervert history and the course of justice. The sermon, is both trite and hollow, coming from a party with intolerance for dissent as its hallmark. A party that humiliated opposition parties and stunted their growth. This was the atmosphere that nurtured the birth of the All Progressives Congress (APC)”.
He said the accusation that Buhari was behind the spate of herdsmen and farmers clashes in the Middle Belt of Nigeria was an embarrassing charge that the PDP would make, “conveying an allegation from the beer parlours of Nigeria to an international body like the UN.”
“The PDP certainly has no shred of evidence to make such an allegation. These are comments driven by tribalism and that age-old trick of balkanisation in a bid to score political points. This should not surprise anyone given the politics of anger, violence and polarisation that are the stock-in-trade of the PDP.
“The various lengths to which President Buhari has gone to end the spate of killings, such as mobilising state resources against the attackers, approving the setting up of new police and army formations in the affected areas, and the recruitment of thousands into the police and other arms of the military, are a few of the several steps taken which a more reasonable opposition will acknowledge.
“What can President Buhari possibly gain from the killings? There is no intelligent angle from which you analyse the matter and see any possible gain for this government in the wanton destruction of life and property going on. For the ‘new’ PDP leadership on the other hand, incapable of thinking big about the nation, they see and treat the unfortunate spate of killing of innocent Nigerians as political gift, about which they seem very happy to cite as the basis for a return to power. They feel bad at every turn the country improves, which is beyond comprehension. They should bury their heads in shame.”
