WSJ: PDP demands NASS inquest into alleged secret burial of troops

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called on the National Assembly to immediately open an inquest into what it observed as the shocking report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which alleged the secret burial of 1,000 fallen Nigerian soldiers in the war against terror in the Northeast.

In a statement issued in Abuja on Friday by Kola Ologbondiyan, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, the main opposition party demanded that the National Assembly should respond to the apprehensions of Nigerians by immediately setting up a special security committee to conduct a forensic investigation into the truth or otherwise of the report, with the tenor and mode as prescribed for security issues in the 1999 Constitution (as Amended.)

The party predicated its demand on “the brazen attempt by the Buhari Presidency to politicise such huge security issue and making uncomplimentary allusions to the plight of our troops, in yet another unpatriotic and insensitive press release on the state of our nation.”

The statement added: “It is unfortunate that at this time when patriotic Nigerians are distressed about the wellbeing of our gallant soldiers and seeking for solutions to the challenges they face in the front, the Buhari Presidency is rather issuing press statements, just like the one it released on Friday, August 2, 2019, wherein it leveraged on the plight of our soldiers to boast on how to retain a stolen presidential mandate.

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“Instead of showing concern over the fate of our troops, taking concrete steps on the issue at stake and reassuring an anxious nation, the Buhari Presidency is rather seeking to draw political capital from our security challenges by flaunting a despicable self-confidence on the Presidential election petition pending in the Court of Appeal, and how, in its own words, ‘the judiciary would always come to conclusions.’

“It is imperative to state that such comments send very wrong signal against our judiciary and we urge the judiciary arm to insulate herself from the nocturnal shenanigans of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the cabal at the Presidency, which have gone into frenzy following the apparent collapse of their defence at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.

The statement said while the Buhari Presidency, has with its latest stance on such grave security issue, further exhibited that it has come short of appropriate solutions to the security challenges facing our nation, it stated that waving off of such without the least effort to unravel the issues and reassure Nigerians, shows total failure of leadership.

The PDP posited that President Buhari has again failed to demonstrate that he has the capacity and commitment to ensure the security of our nation.

“Our party thus stands solidly behind the people’s candidate, Atiku Abubakar, in his patriotic concerns over the report. Only a leader, who lacks genuine concern for his people, will gloat over such a report, as being witnessed under the Buhari administration,” the PDP declared.