Secondus should not try to mislead the UN – Presidency

President Muhammadu Buhari has cautioned the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) not to mislead the international community and global institutions that the anti-graft war in Nigeria is an attack on the country’s democracy.

The President in a statement by Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to President on Media and Publicity indicated that the war against corruption, for which many more politicians may soon be docked, cannot be misrepresented as an attack on human rights “and Mr. Secondus should not try to mislead the UN.”

He observed 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…”

He reiterated that that is not something they are used to at all. “For the PDP, as has now emerged, national security was the major source of their funding,” the Presidency said.

“The PDP Chairman and all other politicians, against whom the country’s anti-corruption agencies have on-going 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. Nigerians suffered because of the poison sowed by the PDP,” the President declared.

“If the public were privy to some of the facts and figures on corruption that President Buhari and the anti-corruption agencies have, they would understand the passion that drives the determination to nail these callous men and stop them in their corrupt tracks,” Garba further declared.

He stated that the letter written by the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Uche Secondus to the United Nations Secretary General accusing President Muhammadu Buhari of several allegations confirm the opposition party as a bad loser, desperate for another chance after they were kicked out for failing the nation and its people.

He acknowledged that in the said letter, which is no les preposterous and comical, the opposition accused the Nigerian government of “destroying Nigeria’s democracy.”

He contended: “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).”

Regarding the accusation that President Buhari is behind the spate of herdsmen and farmer clashes in the Middle Belt of Nigeria, all we will say is that it as 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.

He said that 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 analyze 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,” Shehu protested.

He was of the view that the PDP members feel bad at every turn the country improves, which is beyond comprehension, saying “they should bury their heads in shame.”