Ship Of Nigeria State is Adrift, Requires Urgent Help – PDP Stresses

BY EVELYN DADU, ABUJA – The national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday declared following series of meetings by the various organs of the party in the last one week, it has come to the conclusion that the ship of the Nigeria State is adrift and requires urgent help.

The Party also said that it is very clear that Nigeria is on the precipice with arms-bearing non-state actors menacingly overrunning the state and its institutions and daily eroding the nation’s sovereignty.

The PDP specifically said that Nigeria has become an expansive field of mass kidnapping and murder under the watch of the APC-led Federal Government.

The party also said that these perilous situations have manifested through terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, arson, and inexplicable murderous rampage across the nation, saying that Government’s monopoly over legitimate coercive powers has been compromised and torpedoed, with criminal gangs let loose across the nation.

National Chairman of the PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, who stated the position of the party at a press conference in Abuja, further said that It is unimaginable that terrorists, who had been pushed out to the fringes by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, leading to the successful elections of 2015, have since boldly reasserted themselves and are now taking territories in five local governments of Niger State, which is only two hours from Abuja.

Secondus also said that it important to note that Governor Nasir el-Rufai, who by his position, is armed with credible intelligence, raised the alarm that terrorists and bandits were making inroads into the towns in Kaduna state.

He further said that equally noteworthy is the alarm raised by the Governor of Nasarawa State, Engr. Sule Abdullhahi, that the Boko Haram were occupying territories in his State.

The PDP National Chairman said that a strategic and intelligent interpretation of these is that Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is surrounded, adding that presently, the nation has witnessed an upsurge of kidnapping in the FCT, thereby giving vent to the assertions of the Governors.

Secondus noted that in addition to this, is the escalation of killings, arson, bloodletting, and kidnappings of Nigerians, including men and women in uniforms across the nation.

He also said that between January and now, no fewer than 741 Nigerians have been murdered by bandits and terrorists just as dozens of police formations and security checkpoints, have been attacked, leaving scores dead, adding that an attack on a correctional facility in Owerri, Imo State, led to the release of 1,844 inmates.

In the words of Secondus; “Furthermore, from the kidnap of 110 Dapchi school girls, to the kidnap of 344 students from Government Science School in Kankara, Katsina State, kidnap of 42 travellers between Kotangora and Minna, Niger State; abduction of another 27 students in Niger State; kidnap of about 300 students of Government Girls Secondary School, Jangebe in Zamfara State; abduction in March this year of about 30 students of Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, Kaduna, who are still being held in captivity; and the abduction of the students of the Greenfield University, who were intermittently slain without any response from government,” he said.