Stop creating division among Nigerians, Atiku warns PDP

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar yesterday warned the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against polar­izing the country along fault lines to divert attention from bad governance.
Reacting to a report in a newspaper (not Daily Sun), alleging that a former Russian spy has linked the All Progressives Congress (APC) to ter­rorists and extremists, Atiku said these sponsored allegations by the PDP would not help the country. He said no responsible government should seek to create division, suspicion and animosity among its citizens by linking the opposition leaders with ter­rorism or accusing them of harbouring extremists.
According to Atiku, the PDP has through its Na­...tional Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, labelled APC the “Islamic Brotherhood Party of Nigeria” and the “Janjaweed Party,” the nomenclatures he said, were borrowed from abroad and do not exist in Nigeria.
He said the latest publication about a former Russian spy is a continuation of the PDP cam­paign of calumny against the opposition party and its leaders to divert attention from the failures of the ruling party to deliver democracy dividends. The former Vice President expressed concern over the tactics of the PDP administration to drive a wedge between the people by using a religious divide-and-rule strategy to get re-elected in 2015.
Atiku restated that the greatest challenges facing Nigeria are insecurity, joblessness, hopelessness, hunger, unemployment, diseases, fear of the future and poverty.
“The APC is a party for all Nigerians, irrespec­tive of their religious, ethnic or regional identities. Let no one get confused. The APC is the party to stop the looting of the treasury. We will thorough­ly investigate and uncover whatever is missing of the alleged 50 billion dollars stolen from the sale of crude oil. We are going to stop the government-backed theft of crude oil which swings between the daily averages of 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day. APC is the party to create jobs and end joblessness,” the former Vice President said.
He noted that these problems affect all ordinary Nigerians, regardless of their religion or ethnic­ity or the section of the country they come from. Atiku said the PDP tactics of divide and rule is a reflection of desperation because the citizens are clamouring for change.
Dismissing the allegations of harbouring extremists by the opposition as sheer fabrication, the former Vice President said the ruling PDP should attend to serious national problems crying for attention. He expressed surprise that a PDP administration that has a moral burden of account­ing for billions of dollars of national revenues mysteriously missing should divert public atten­tion by seeking refuge in the pastime of accusing the opposition leaders of harbouring extremists or sponsoring terrorism.