The Federal Government on Thursday declared that the claim by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, that the adoption and release of the Dapchi schoolgirls were stage-managed portrays the opposition party as an inhuman, insensitive, unpatriotic and unworthy party.
Following the release of the girls abducted by a faction of Boko Haram terrorists, the PDP had in a tweet by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologboniyan, described the kidnap and release of the girls as, “A scam of no equal dimensions the world over.
@OfficialPDPNig had repeatedly warned about conspiratorial plots advanced by @APCNigeria interests to gain heroic attainments.”
Reacting in a statement issued in Abuja by his special assistant, Segun Adeyemi, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said it would have taken a conspiracy of global proportion to have stage-managed the adoption and release of the girls since the release of Dapchi girls followed negotiations by friendly countries and reputable international organizations.
Mohammed maintained that the reaction of the PDP amounts to an expression of sour grapes, especially because the party failed woefully – when it was in power – to quickly resolve a similar abduction of schoolgirls.
He said, “As we have said many times since the abduction of the Dapchi schoolgirls, no government is exempted from its own share of tragedies. What makes the difference is the way such tragedies are managed.
Whereas it took the PDP all of 18 days to even acknowledge the abduction of the Chibok girls in 2014, the APC Federal Government acted promptly and responsively when the Dapchi schoolgirls were abducted 19 Feb. 2018, hence their quick release.”
The minister stated that it is unfortunate that the PDP that failed woefully as a ruling party has also failed grievously as an opposition party, going by its insensitive and crude response to the release of the Dapchi schoolgirls – a development that calls for non-partisan celebration.
According to him, “In its 16 years in power, the PDP redefined governance as cluelessness, massive looting of the public treasury and crude exhibition of power.
In its over three years in opposition, the PDP has again shown it does not understand the role of the opposition in a democracy. How then can the PDP convince Nigerians that it has learnt its lessons and that it is ready to rule the country again? Nigerians must say ‘never again’ to this primitive and soulless party.”
