The Minority Leader of the Senate, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe has described the All Progressives Congress (APC), as a party that has not demonstrated empathy with the hurting parts of Nigeria and called on the government, to engage in dialogue with all the wounded sections of the country.
Senator Abaribe said this, on Channels interview programme aired and monitored by our correspondent, on Tuesday morning.
The Senate Minority Leader said the manner the All Progressives Congress has managed the diversity of Nigeria has left much to be desired of its vision.
He said the main opposition party can manage the nation’s diversity bringing healing to all the wounded parts of the country.
“We believe that the APC was not set up to manage Nigerians, and so, our own party is going to carry every be body along.
“Those of us within our party, who know that we are going to play politics, know that you have to talk to people you have to be able to let people see into your vision and go on with the consultation,” Abaribe said.
According to him, the government should be worried that in spite of its overwhelming power over the separatists and the hurting sections of the country, the people have remained resilient and daring, thus, he urged the President Buhari led administration to discuss with the various warring groups for a healthy Nigeria.
He said ideologies are not crushed by the force of state but by dialogue which brings out the purposes for the beliefs and measures to tame the same.
“It should worry the government If a non-state actor is complied with in this manner. It takes us back to what I said in the beginning, that there is a need for us to sit and talk.
“Not to, at all times demonize or try to wave the off as people you can crush with kinetic means.
“If you are a discerning person, you should ask yourself, why do these people still fight despite all the assurances, despite all they are losing, they are willing to make that sacrifice.
“You can crush people physically but you cannot crush an idea. So you need to be able to engage and that idea is the reason why the discussion is all about,” Abaribe stated.
He said the seeming apathy on the side of government towards this group was not good and assured Nigerians that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), would do better, in 2023.
The minority leader of the Senate said the government should build a national bridge by engaging all parts of the country that are in pain for a harmonious Nigeria and engender peace in all her various domains.
He noted that to act averse to these painful feelings would not solve the matter but grow the pain inside the various hurting people in the country in the north and southern part of Nigeria.
“I know, as a matter of fact, that well-meaning Nigerians to this government for such discussion to take place, but it has all been rebuffed.
“This government needs to dialogue, with everybody: not only the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the Yoruba separatist; this government need to continue to be dialoguing with the Niger Delta people; this government need to talk and dialogue with the people of the middle belt; the people from Plateau; the people from Southern Kaduna.
“You need to talk to all these people because there is something going on which is that our people are being killed, robbed, massacred.
“We just seem, to sit and not bothered on the massive mayhem going on, going in in the country. we just seem to want to do election and people are dying.”
Abaribe said the party has not yet zoned the Presidency to the north, however, “If my party will make a decision, then, it is at that time, that I will make my own feelings known.
He said an Igbo Presidency was ripe for 2023 because the pain suffered by the Igbo nation, would serve as a springboard, to make all parts of Nigeria experience acceptability, as all energies would be harnessed for the common good.
He said: “Let me put it this way, the man, who the shoe pinches now, knows better. The Igbo people in Nigeria, who make the conscious effort of leaving their own people to settle everywhere else, without hurting their hosts at any point where they go to stay with their host, we have never heard, they kill and maim and burn and all that, we have known how to aggregate everybody’s feelings, their customs, their laws, their everything.
“Because of that, we feel that the Igbo’s understand you. We even have the time for you. Today, we do not feel that this government has the time for everybody, am talking about the whole of Nigeria. They hardly talk to them,” Sen. Abaribe said.
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