BY GRACE ANAYANWU, ABUJA – The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has condemned, the gruesome attack on Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina state, by suspected terrorists, leading to reported deaths and abduction of no fewer than 600 students.
The Party specifically stressed that this particular abduction in the President’s home state, under his watch, raises further serious questions over this government’s capacity to fight insurgency.
The PDP said that while standing with the entire Katsina people, charged President Muhammadu Buhari, as the commander-in-chief, who promised to lead from the front, to account for the abducted students, stressing that the large-scale abduction happened a few hours after the President and his security machinery took over the state.
The Party said that it holds as perplexing that at a time the people of Katsina should have heaved a sigh of relief because of Buhari’s presence, the abduction happened right under Mr. President’s nose; in his home state, where he had gone holidaying.
A statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, note that the development has further exposed the failure of President Buhari to manage high level security intelligence that ought to accompany a presidential visit.
The PDP noted as distressing that President Buhari, who refused to honour an invitation by the House of Representatives for a collective deliberation on security, could abandon his duty post for a holiday, leaving our national flanks open for terrorists, bandits, vandals, and insurgents.
According to the PDP; “The time of the attack buttresses the fact that President Buhari, as the commander-in-chief, is totally incapable of securing our nation; the very reason there have been widespread calls by patriotic Nigerians that he should resign.
“This insolence of Mr. President towards issues of national security compelled our caucus in the House of Representatives to demand for his impeachment.
“Our party believes that if President Buhari had listened to wise counsel as proffered by the PDP and other patriotic Nigerians including the two chambers of the National Assembly to rejig the nation’s security architecture, our situation would not have deteriorated to this sorry state.
“This is more worrisome as the state government had been known to have established contacts with, as well as pampering bandits, which Mr. President had not condemned.
“The PDP demands that President Buhari should immediately quit his needless holidaying in Daura and go in search of, and rescue the abducted students, particularly having earlier admitted that issue of security is his exclusive responsibility,” PDP stated.
While sympathizing with the people of Katsina state, particularly the parents of the kidnapped students, who have been subjected to harrowing experience occasioned by what it described as “the incompetence of the Buhari administration,” the party said that, working in concert with other patriotic Nigerians will not rest until President Buhari finds and returns each of the students.
The PDP urged Nigerians to remain alert and prayerful as the nation wades through this nightmare under an insensitive, inept and uncoordinated administration.
