The party particularly took on the senior special assistant to the president on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, whom it said, made “cavalier, but utterly fatuous statements” against Buhari.
In a statement issued yesterday, CPC’s national publicity secretary, Engr. Rotimi Fashakin, said that Okupe, in a reaction to Buhari’s rejection of Boko Haram’s call to mediate between it and the federal government on a Channels’ interview on Thursday, “abandoned reason as a tool for dialectical engagement (based on verifiable fact) and sounded like a broken record in mouthing the same over-used propaganda (not based on substantiated fact), that Buhari incited his supporters to resort to violence during the 2011 polls.”
At an interactive session with journalists after the CPC Board of Trustees’ meeting on Wednesday, Buhari had labelled the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government of President Goodluck Jonathan “as the author of the political variant of Boko-Haram.”
Fashakin expressed shock that Okupe could dare to say that during the 2011 campaigns, “Gen. Buhari himself campaigned for violence, so it is too late in the day to try to back track. Those who sow wind should not try to look good.”
The CPC chieftain noted that it was this same “capricious but unfounded falsity’’ that the special adviser to the president on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, Okupe’s colleague, wrote in his Guardian newspaper column in May 2011.
“For the sake of preserving the records from the desperate attempts of revisionists in the nation’s power corridor, let us examine again the facts that stare us in the face about the consanguinity of this PDP-led federal government of President Jonathan, with the political Boko-Haram that had, in the last two years, inflicted incalculable damage on the essence of our nationhood.
“Fact one: Since the advent of the Fourth Republic on May 29, 1999, aside the agitation of the Niger Delta militants for resource control, there had not been any structured infrastructure for mass attack on innocents and religious institutions as has been seen in the last 25 months.
While Dr Jonathan was still vying for the presidential nomination of his party, there was a bomb blast near the Eagle Square, Abuja during the Independence anniversary celebration on October 1, 2011. Whilst the dust was still settling on an infamy that claimed innocent lives with many others severely wounded and without any preliminary report from the security agencies on the incident, the president spoke, saying, ‘It is not MEND.’
“A perspicacious check on the president’s statement would suggest that he had prior knowledge of the source of the blast. Of course, in the succeeding days, the campaign manager of one of the political elements (from northern Nigeria) that was contesting the party nomination with him was invited for questioning by the nation’s secret service as a way to deflect public gaze towards him. When he withdrew his candidacy, the president quickly incorporated his campaign manager into the ‘Goodluck Jonathan campaign organisation!
“Fact two: In May 2011, Dr. Abati, then chairman, Editorial Board of Guardian Newspapers and Friday columnist of the same tabloid, wrote a piece in which he laid the blame of the post-election violence of April 2011 elections at the doorsteps of Buhari. It did not matter to the writer that he had no empirical evidence to support his impudent assertion.
“Curiously, it was upon this decrepit literary predication that all other spurious attempts (on the Cyber-space and Nation-space) were based. After President Jonathan was sworn in on May 29, 2011, here placed his former special adviser on Media and Publicity, Ima Niboro, with Abati! The question is: Was this appointment a fitting reward to Dr Abati for the hatchet job of assisting to blacken Buhari’s pedigree?
“Fact Three: On Friday, August 26, 2011, the United Nations’ building in Abuja was bombed by a suicide bomber, leaving trail of several fatalities and many others with serious injuries. Asked if the attack had adverse effect on the image of Nigeria, the president said, “Of course, you could have terrorist attack in any country, Nigeria is not an isolated case. Many countries have suffered from terrorists attacks; maybe it is the turn of Nigeria. But we are on top of the situation.”
On the first anniversary of the bombed UN building, the government of Dr Jonathan provided N3.2 billion to rehabilitate the UN House, made up of N2.6 billion to start the building and N600 million to provide temporary accommodation, in addition to promised refund of $580,000 for the treatment of victims. It did not really matter to this profligate PDP government that the UN, in its worldwide operations, has comprehensive insurance for its buildings and workers, even against terrorism! Was the offer by the government of Dr. Jonathan made because it is Nigeria?’’
Fashakin further cited Jonathan’s disclosure that his government had been infiltrated by Boko Haram, the trial of Mohammed Ali Ndume, a serving PDP senator from Borno South over alleged link with Boko Haram, erstwhile National Security Adviser to the president, Gen. Andrew Azazi’s assertion that the PDP was responsible for the activities of the sect as proofs that the ruling party was responsible for the ranging violence in the country.
Leadership
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