NDUBUISI MICHAELS
National Chairman of People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus, has challenged the military to stop the seeming unending Benue killings with the same zeal they “danced” around in the South-south and South-east regions recently.
He reminded the military in 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”.
Secondus, in a statement, titled: “Benue Killings: Stop This Mindless Killings Now”, said: “Where are the military operatives that carried out Python and Crocodile dances in South East and South South Region respectively lately brandishing their might to less dangerous citizens and who have been unable to tackle the Benue killings?”
Secondus therefore charged the Presidency to halt the senseless killings going on in Benue state immediately before it degenerates into a national crisis.
He said in a condolence message to the Benue State Governor, Dr. Samuel Ortom and the Catholic Church in Nigeria on the Tuesday Morning’s 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, that the latest of the killings in Benue state which began on a New Year’s Day is no longer bearable.
The PDP boss also said in the 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 raises a lot of concern on the future of this 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.
“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.
The PDP National Chairman alerted the nation and the international community that the choreographed tension in the land is being designed by the APC administration to charge up the polity to enable them carry out its agenda of abusing democratic process and the rule of law ahead of 2019.
“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 Region respectively lately brandishing their might to less dangerous citizens and who have been unable to tackle the Benue killings.
“How can anybody expect Benue state for instant to contribute its own share of the $1billion 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.
Secondus also asked the APC administration to accept “one huge fact that under their watch the country has collapsed irreparably and there is no evidence of the existence of government in the land”.