Call off holiday, search for missing Katsina students, PDP tells Buhari

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has condemned what it sees as the gruesome attack on Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina State, by suspected terrorists, leading to reported deaths and abduction of no fewer than 600 students.

The party has also called on President Muhammadu Buhari, now on a week-long visit to the state, to abandon his holiday and lead the search for the kidnapped students.

Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Saturday, Kola Ologbondiyan, National Publicity Secretary of the main opposition party, who made the declaration, also said that the PDP is standing with the entire Katsina people and charged the president “as the commander-in-chief, who promised to lead from the front, to account for the abducted students, as the large-scale abduction happened a few hours after the President and his security machinery took over the state.”

The party said that it is perplexing “that at a time the people of Katsina should have heaved a sigh of relief because of his presence, the abduction happened right under Mr. President’s nose; in his home state, where he had gone holidaying.”

The PDP added: “This development has further exposed the failure of President Buhari to manage high level security intelligence that ought to accompany a presidential visit.”

The party further noted as distressing that President Buhari, who refused to honour an invitation by the House of Representatives for a collective deliberation on security, could abandon his duty post for a holiday, leaving our national flanks open for terrorists, bandits, vandals, and insurgents.

It said: “The time of the attack buttresses the fact that President Buhari, as the commander-in-chief, is totally incapable of securing our nation; the very reason there have been widespread calls by patriotic Nigerians that he should resign.

“This insolence of Mr. President towards issues of national security compelled our caucus in the House of Representatives to demand for his impeachment.”

The PDP expressed that belief that if President Buhari had listened to wise counsel as proffered by the party and other patriotic Nigerians including the two chambers of the National Assembly to rejig the nation’s security architecture, the nation’s situation would not have deteriorated to this sorry state.

It also stated: “Moreover, this particular abduction in the President’s home state, under his watch, raises further serious questions over this government’s capacity to fight insurgency.

“This is more worrisome as the state government had been known to have established contacts with, as well as pampering bandits, which Mr. President had not condemned.”

The PDP demanded that “President Buhari should immediately quit his needless holidaying in Daura and go in search of, and rescue the abducted students, particularly having earlier admitted that issue of security is his exclusive responsibility.”

It expressed sympathy with the people of Katsina state, particularly the parents of the kidnapped students, who it noted, have been subjected to harrowing experience occasioned by the incompetence of the Buhari administration.

While urging Nigerians to remain alert and prayerful “as the nation wades through this nightmare under an insensitive, inept and uncoordinated administration,” the PDP said working in concert with other patriotic Nigerians, it will not rest until President Buhari finds and returns each of these students.

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