The National Chairman of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, has charged the Presidency to halt the senseless killings going on in Benue State immediately before it degenerates into a national crisis.
Prince Secondus made the call in a condolence message he sent to the Benue State Governor, Dr. Samuel Ortom and the Catholic Church in Nigeria.
The condolence message is on the Tuesday morning brutal murder of two Catholic priests and 17 other worshippers of St Ignatius Quashi Catholic Church parish in Ukpor-Mbalom in Gwer local government area of the state.
Secondus declared that the latest killings in Benue State which began on a New Year’s Day was no longer bearable.
The PDP boss said in a statement signed by his media adviser, Ike Abonyi, that the continued bloodletting in Benue and other parts of the country and the apparent inability of the government to stem it raised a lot of concern on the future of the country.
“From whichever angle you are witnessing what is happening in this country, one thing is agreeable that this country is sliding dangerously.
“Nigerians and the global community have continued to watch as all the tenets of democracy are being eroded and giving way to dictatorial tendencies.
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“In the last one week we have watched as disturbing indices continue to crop up ahead of the forthcoming general election with APC administration either unconcerned or involved in a tactical endorsement of such act,” he said.
The PDP national chairman alerted the nation and the international community that the choreographed tension in the land was being designed by the APC administration to charge up the polity to enable it carry out “its agenda of abusing democratic process and the rule of law ahead of 2019.”
Prince Secondus admonished the security operatives as professionals to bear in mind always the words of the former US President Theodore Roosevelt that “Patriotism means to stand with the country. It does not mean to stand with the President.”
He said further: “I find it unexplainable that some group of gunmen should hold a state to ransom since January killing and maiming citizens and destroying their houses and the security operatives appear helpless.
“Where are the military operatives that carried out Python and Crocodile dances in South East and South South regions respectively…
“How can anybody expect Benue State for instant to contribute its own share of the $1b security votes when the nation security architecture is not designed to protect their people?
“If we are to give in to the president’s assertions lately that these killer herdsmen are foreigners trained by late Libyan leader, Muamour Gadhafi, where then lies our pride as a nation that a dead Gadhafi could leave behind such deadly force that a living President and its army have no answer to.”
