From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) caucus in the House of Representatives has berated President Muhammadu Buhari over the spate of killings and kidnappings across the country.
The caucus, in a statement by its leader, Kingsley Chinda, on Wednesday, said the country has been seized by kidnappers, bandits and terrorists, without the government showing the capacity to confront the security challenges.
The opposition lawmakers accused the president of repeatedly boasting that he would defeat bandits and terrorists, without doing much to confront the insecurity in the country head-on.
They recalled that President Buhari in his comment at the sidelines of the COP-26 conference in Scotland had stated that ‘we will defeat them, one highway, one rail link and one job at a time.’
However, the caucus added that ‘it is over three weeks since the conference ended, no stone of resistance has been mobilized by the general against bandits, terrorists and kidnappers.
‘Everywhere we turn, today, our dead are either being prepared for burials by families whose hearts are torn up by grief, or they are being mourned by families who can’t tell where the corpses of their loved ones are or where the killer squads will turn up next.
‘The communities of Sabon Birni of Sokoto State, Kagara of Niger State, Karim Lamido of Taraba State, Katoge and Yanturaku of Katsina State, and of the North East, North West, South-South and South East are witnesses to the reigns of terror.’
The caucus said that President Buhari has allegedly failed to ‘bring the killer squads who roam the vast swathes of our country to book, is spreading across every acreage of citizens’ habitation and turning our once quiet and peaceful homesteads, hamlets, villages, towns and cities into funeral parlours and cemeteries.’