PDP Mocks President’s Benue Visit As Insensitive

• Celebrates Jigawa rally as its new dawn       

BY VICTOR BUORO, ABUJA – The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says President Muhammadu Buhari’s afterthought visit to Benue is needless and serves only as a large billboard of his administration’s gross insensitivity to the plight of Nigerians.

The main opposition party said coming several months after the massacre of Nigerians, the President’s visits to troubled states, particularly Benue, serve no sincere purpose since they did not come from the heart but evidently orchestrated for political reasons.

However, the PDP is upbeat that its Monday mega rally in Dutse, Jigawa State has opened a new vista for the party as the true hope for Nigerians.

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP described as ‘appalling and highly disheartening’ that the President is only visiting his distressed citizens after a widespread outcry over his aloofness and not out of any genuine concern for their well-being. 

“What is the purpose of condolence visit when it does not come from the heart but orchestrated to deceive and beguile the people ahead of the 2019 general elections?”, the statement queried

The PDP spokesman further stated thus: “Indeed, we agree no less with Nigerians that this cosmetic and politically motivated visit is nothing but a direct mockery of the dead and a heavy slap on the faces of the bereaved.

“This is the same president, who at the wake of the massacre summoned the leaders and the bereaved to Abuja, rather than complying with the age-long tradition of Africans by immediately visiting the bereaved. 

“Months after their tears have dried and they are painfully gathering their broken pieces, the Presidency is now trying to use them for a political posturing by staging a cosmetic condolence visit just to score a political point.” 

Ologbondiyan said quite disturbing is the “fact that following the public criticisms that trailed the President’s glaring aloofness and failure to visit the direct victims during his whistle stops in Taraba and Plateau states, his handlers has now arranged a put-on visit to some Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Benue, which is nothing but a posturing stunt to further deceive the people.”

“If the Buhari administration is genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of the people of Benue and other trouble states, what decisive step has been taken to apprehend those behind the carnage and bring them to book?”, the PDP said, adding; “What steps have been taken to ensure adequate protection for the people and to end the daily bloodletting in the land?”

Accusing the APC government of engaging in making reproachful comments and dishing out false information to the people, the PDP urged the Presidency to end the unnecessary road-show and take decisive steps to ensure the security of the people.

The PDP warned that those organizing the ‘road shows’ must understand that “Nigerians can no longer be deceived by cosmetic and pretentious posturing from this grossly insensitive and incompetent administration, which has brought them so much pain.”