The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has said all alleged sponsors of terror in Nigeria are either within the ruling party, the PDP, or somehow associated with it.<\/p>\n
In a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the presidency and the PDP should tell Nigerians the names of all those mentioned as sponsors of Boko Haram in a well-researched article in the journal of the New York-based World Policy Institute, entitled: \u201dAnatomy of African Terrorism: Boko Haram, Nigeria\u2019s homegrown terror network.\u201d<\/p>\n
It said that a quick perusal of the article shows a former Nigerian Ambassador to Sao Tome and Principe and a serving Nigerian State Governor, all members of the PDP, as alleged terror sponsors.<\/p>\n
\u201dContrary to the blatant falsehood being peddled by the presidency and the PDP, not one member of the ACN was mentioned in that document, which is available to those who are more interested in seeking the truth than calling the dog a bad name just to hang it.<\/p>\n
\u201dWe abhor terrorism in all its ramifications, and have never and will never support terrorism under any guise. But our stand on Boko Haram is also well known to all fair-minded people whose thinking has not been clouded by political considerations: Terror has festered in our country largely because of widespread poverty\/economic deprivation, massive unemployment, injustice and alienation of a large section of the society, all products of years of bad governance.<\/p>\n
\u201dFor example, Nigeria is home to the largest number of out-of-school children in the world, according to UNESCO. What this means is that we are creating a large pool of possible recruits for terror.<\/p>\n
\u201dWhile these problems date back a long time, the rapacious PDP, which has ruled at the centre since our country\u2019s return to democratic rule in 1999, and the painfully incompetent government of President Goodluck Jonathan have not made things better. It is therefore clear that as these evil twins PDP\/Presidency) point one accusing finger at the ACN, four others are pointing at them,\u201d ACN said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the party has expressed total satisfaction at the speed with which the presidency and the PDP, in separate statements, repudiated the part of the Boko Haram\/Ansaru proscription Order that is deemed to be at variance with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.<\/p>\n
The assurances given by the two are exactly what the ACN had demanded in its earlier statement that called attention to the fact that the vague and open-ended Order could stifle the freedom of the press and tamper with the fundamental human rights of the ordinary Nigerian.<\/p>\n
\u201dAfter much rambling, the presidency\u2019s statement on the issue said: \u2018For the avoidance of doubt, the order is not meant to stop journalists from carrying out their duties or function of news gathering or reporting as they differ from terrorist activities. Rather, the order is out to criminalize acts of incitement by anyone, group of persons or institutions to commit terrorist acts through dissemination of terrorist information\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201dAnd when it is stripped of its now boring cliches, the statement from the PDP said: \u2018For the avoidance of doubt, no section of the Order stifled the press; violated or seeks to violate any provision of the constitution.
\nInstead the Order reinforced the provisions of the constitution guaranteeing the security and welfare of all Nigerians\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201dThis clarification is exactly what we demanded in our statement, and we can now happily say our work is done. As usual, we choose to ignore the use of uncouth language, needless vituperation and accusations that are not empirically-grounded \u2013 which are now the hallmarks of a sinking residency\/ruling party,\u201d ACN said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has said all alleged sponsors of terror in Nigeria are either within the ruling party, the PDP, or somehow associated with it. In a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n