The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has charged President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) to take responsibility for the shooting and reported killing of peaceful and unarmed young protesters by military operatives at Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos on Tuesday night.
PDP in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, Wednesday stated that, President Buhari is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces and the buck stops on his table.
It added that “our party is however shocked at President Buhari’s stance, particularly his inability to demonstrate the capacity for concerned, attentive and proactive governance and command structure, while the nation he presides over dangerously slides into anarchy.
“A well structured governance response from Mr. President, as the father of the nation, would have calmed frayed nerves and averted the crisis, violence, deaths, destruction of property and the avoidable losses we are witnessing today, the party noted.
Continuing, the statement read ” it is indeed heartrending that our once united, viable, resilient and cohesive nation handed over to President Buhari in 2015 is fast collapsing in his hands.
“In countries where presidents are alive to the demands of their offices, the country would not be in turmoil with citizens being murdered in cold blood as witnessed in our country in the last 48 hours, yet the citizenry cannot find their president or Prime Minister coming out personally to offer consolation, provide direction and give hope.
“Moreover, the video showing police vans and vehicles belonging to other security agencies bringing in and coordinating armed thugs to attack peaceful protesters in Abuja points to serious complicity in high places.
“The APC and its agents in government circles had kept mute over reports in the public space that they are behind the deployment of the armed thugs to infiltrate peaceful protests and perpetrate acts of violence so as to discredit the demonstration and justify their attacks on protesters; a development that had led to escalation of restiveness in various parts of our country.
“Furthermore, the unexplained dismantling of security cameras and lights at the Lekki Toll gate before military operatives opened fire on peaceful protesters, further points to high-level conspiracy against Nigerians.
“Such unleashing of terror against peaceful demonstrators exposes a dangerous recourse to barefaced brutality, violence and killing to suppress and subjugate the Nigerian people.
“Today, under the APC, our streets are stained with the blood of our promising young ones. Our highways have been turned into battlegrounds where thugs and security operatives mow down citizens and destroy property with reckless abandon.
“Painfully, every command structure that engenders good governance appears to have collapsed and life is gradually returning to the Hobbes “State of Nature,” under a system that has gained notoriety for human rights abuse, killings and deploying of security operatives, thugs, vandals and bandits to assault Nigerians whenever they come out to demand for good governance”, the statement noted.
