Group condemns attempt to politicize death of Lt. Col. Ali, six others

A group, the Centre for Social Justice, Equity and Transparency (CESJET), has described as unpatriotic and sacrilegious attempts by some individuals to politicise the death of Lt. Col Abu-Ali and six others in the army.

The human rights advocacy group said the death of the army officers who paid the ultimate price with their lives, defending the nation should be a reason to unite Nigerians.

Addressing journalists in Abuja, Executive Director of CESJET, Joyce Adamu said the show of emotion that followed the death of Lt. Col Abu-Ali and six others is a testament that Nigerians must unite in the fight against terrorism.

She regretted, however, that some Nigerians were still seeking to politicise the death of the national heroes just to promote their selfish course and score cheap political points.

According to her, “Our briefing today is to appeal that no one should dance on the graves of these heroes. We are beginning to see that there are people manifesting their loss of humanity and see nothing wrong in attempting to cash in on these tragedies by making insinuations that have no place among right thinking people.

“Most of this depravity is manifested in claims that the army suffered casualty in the Boko Haram attacks because present conditions are worse than what obtained under former President Goodlcuk Jonathan. One would have expected that the army and the Ministry of Defence would be allowed to properly investigate what went wrong to account for such casualty instead of jumping to conclusion.

“We observed that these claims are being attributed to people who are not bold enough to reveal their identities and their so called interviews are mostly reported by cloned sites that attempt to pass off as objective, hard working and credible news organisations. To say the least, this is the height of irresponsibility. The deaths of gallant soldiers who laid down their own lives to keep the rest of us safe should not be reduced into parodies and the subject of falsehood.”

According to her, those who are desperate to castigate President Muhammadu Buhari and COAS, Lt Gen Tukur Buratai for political reasons should at least allow the bereaved families mourn their loved ones with dignity without turning these late heroes into fodder for an ill advised debate.

She said, “In the wake of these national losses and those before them we should rather as a people be asking for who are the people that are helping Boko Haram terrorists to regroup, re-arm and launch attacks on the scale on which they have done between late September and now. We should be demanding for the exposure of those that feeds the cells of the terror group with information on troops movement and deployment to the extent that they know when to attack.”

Adamu urged soldiers to reinvigorate their fighting spirit and to continue to see their undertaking as service to God, nation and humanity, saying the numerous tributes with deep to the fallen heroes from Nigerians across all divides are testament that Nigerians appreciate their sacrifices.