Officials of Convention for Democracy in Nigeria addressing the media Thursday
The Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) has been accused of sponsoring a fictitious report through International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA) to mock the families of late Chief of Defense Staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh (rtd) and Major-General Idris Alkali (rtd).
The Convention for Democracy in Nigeria, (CDN) that made the claim on Thursday, urged the relevant authorities to call the PDP to order over its “lust for the blood of innocent Nigerians.”
CDN said one ISSA is being used by the PDP to churn out mischievous stories just to heat up the polity ahead of the 2019 general elections in Nigeria.
Its National President, Abraham Uke, while addressing a press conference on the development, described as insensitive the politicization of the murder of Badeh and Alkali by the opposition party as a tool for propaganda.
Uke said “Unfortunately, what the PDP has succeeded in doing is to mock Nigerians with the death of some patriots in recent times. This habit is consistent with the party’s history of insensitivity to the pain it has inflicted on citizens, which has continued to echo as the insecurity that the country continues to deal with till date. It is this same insecurity that is responsible for the deaths of the various gallant commanders that the report now attempted to read meanings into.
“Politicising the deaths using the report is insensitive and the PDP’s attempt to malign the Nigerian government with the killing of Badeh and Alkali is irresponsible even for a group of people that were long ago described as a nest of vipers. This desecration of memory of the departed is purely a prop for the purpose of elections. The intention is to instigate crisis in the polity and cause ethnic and religious strife that are all geared towards destabilizing the 2019 General Elections.
“Proof has started emerging that the whole report is one huge scam especially when PDP’s arrowhead, Senator Bukola Saraki (Senate President) and Mr. Uche Secondus (PDP National Chairman) could not resist the temptation of being in a selfie with one of the talking heads they had financed to go on a television network to defend the lies in the report. Evidence have equally emerged that it paid premium rates to promote the report so that it has an extended play in media circles. It is no coincidence that someone that has been on television justifying the tales by moonlight document also met the men that have been making political capital out of the lies told in the report.
“Our worry is that as the elections draw nearer there would be more lies that could cost the life of Nigerians. The party that has been responsible for the killing of innocent Nigerians under various guises like herdsmen/farmers crisis, Boko Haram insurgent, bandits and other crises will strike again and find a way to blame it on the incumbent government. The PDP is addicted to the strategy of packaging crises and gifting them to “Nigerians so that they can turn around to claim they alone should be entrusted with solving the problems they created in the first place.
As a non-partisan platform, Convention for Democracy will not sit down and watch any Nigerian or group of persons destroy the peace of the country. No one’s ambition is worth destroying Nigeria for and PDP should know this better with the benefit of experience.
“We therefore warn the PDP in the strongest terms to desist from using the misfortune of some Nigerians to promote disunity and hatred against the federal government, the military or any other agency. The accusation against the federal government may make the PDP feel like it is gaining political millage but the reality is that the suspects arrested for the killing of these former military chiefs and other Nigerians will simply plead innocence in court and point to the PDP report as indicting different people for the crimes,” he said.
