It is an insult that kidnappers could take away district head near Buhari’s house in Daura — PDP replies Presidency

The Peoples Democratic Party PDP has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to “wake up and realise that he is leading a country of about 200 million people.”

The party also asked the President to consider the kidnapping of the district head of Daura, as an insult to himself and the nation.

The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr Kola Ologbodiyan, who spoke with The PUNCH, said the daring manner with which kidnappers had been operating in the country made the party to ask Buhari to return to Nigeria from London where he went for a “private visit ” for 10 days.

Ologbodiyan said, “It is an insult that kidnappers could be that daring to the extent of going a few metres to his (Buhari’s) house and take away his district head.

“That is a worse form of insult to the President of a country like Nigeria. To us, nothing compares to that insult.

“This was one of the many reasons we asked him to abandon whatever he was doing in London and return home. If he had been asked how Nigeria was while he was there, what would have been his response?

“Now is the time for him to show that he still has energy, if he actually has , to work.

“We know that there were no bandits in this country, especially in the North-West before the elections. But they were the ones that brought mercenaries from other countries to this country for the elections.

“The President should therefore wake up and act as a leader, who is leading a nation of more than 200 millon people.”

Ologbondiyan also said it was sad that the Presidency could be comparing the number of deaths in particular administration with what was happening now.

While saying the PDP was not interested in the number of deaths before now, he said the President could quit if he felt the job was too much for him.

He said, “We are not interested in the number of deaths then and now because we are not morticians; we do not work at mortuaries . What we want is peace and a stop to the senseless killings in the country.

“The President came with a promise to change things positively. He did not promise that he would be taking the number of people killed in his administration and then compare the figure with other administrations when he is done.

“However, one thing is sure: we were not witnessing these daily killings, kidnappings, weeping, gnashing of teeth and sorrow during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the late Umaru Yar’Adua and President Goodluck Jonathan. They were never gang of failures.

‘If the President is tired as we could see now, he is free to throw in the towel.”