*Demands that the President should address the nation
By Myke Uzendu, Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged that Nigeria in collapsing under the watch of President Muhammadu Buhari who does not see the need to address the nation on the concerns of the nation but rather chose to deploy the military to hack down protesting youths.
The party in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan on Wednesday asked the President 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.
According to the party, “President Buhari is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces and the buck stops on his table.
“Our party is however shocked at President Buhari 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 loses we are witnessing today.
“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”.
The opposition party further said that the fact that videos showing police vans and vehicles belonging to other security agencies were seen bringing in and coordinating armed thugs to attack peaceful protesters in Abuja points to serious complicity in high places.
“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 party demanded that the President should speak on the sorry state of the nation and take responsibility of the actions of the military.
The PDP condoled with the families and victims of this Lekki killings.
