Benue Killings: ACN accuses Jonathan of insensitivity

Posted by admin Benue, Latest Politics, State News Monday, May 23rd, 2011

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has said that President Goodluck Jonathan’s inability to act urgently to stop the serial killings of members of its party in Benue State may be taken as a green light by the killers to continue such dastardly act.

The party, in a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, also warned that, failure to stop the killings might be misinterpreted to mean that the president would only act to protect life and property when those at the receiving end were members of his party.

The ACN, therefore, impressed it on President Jonathan that he is the president of Nigeria, not that of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and that the security and well-being of all Nigerians are his responsibility.

“Whether they are in your party or in the opposition, they are at the core of your presidential responsibility. It is, therefore, incumbent on you to take urgent measures today to stop the impunity that is taking place in Benue, where several ACN members have been killed, starting from the run-up to the last general election and up to this moment.

”If you fail to act, those at the receiving end may be forced to take the laws into their hands, and the country will have another conflagration to contend with. Setting up a panel then to help unravel the immediate and remote causes of such conflagration will amount to shutting the pen after the chickens have bolted!” ACN said.

It urged the president to always remember his statement that no one’s ambition was worth the blood of any Nigerian, adding that, that was enough reason for the president not to be seen to be unconcerned when any Nigerian was being harassed, maimed or killed for political reasons, as it is now happening in Benue State.

ACN said if the president needed an impetus to act, he should call for the pictures of the body of Charles Ayede, the Senior Media Adviser to the party’s gubernatorial candidate in Benue (Professor Steve Torkuma Ugbah) who was shot dead when gunmen attacked Ugbah’s convoy between Abuja and Makurdi on May 13 2011.

-Tribunewp_posts