Nasarawa Violence: APC Wants Maku Relieved Of Defence Portfolio The All Progressives Congress (APC) has demanded that Information Minister Labaran Maku be relieved of his new assignment as the Supervising Minister of Defence, because he is an interested party in the crisis ravaging Nasarawa State, where government has ordered the deployment of troops to help end the violence. In a statement issued in Lagos yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the fact that Maku is of the Eggon ethnic stock, to which the Ombatse cult/militia group behind the Nasarawa crisis has been linked, made his new role as the supervising minister of defence untenable. It said that even if the minister had no sympathy for the rampaging Ombatse, whatever action he takes in his new capacity concerning the Nasarawa violence will be open to misinterpretation and allegation of bias, which can in turn aggravate the crisis. “This is why we believe that the most prudent thing to do is for President Goodluck Jonathan to immediately take the defence ministry portfolio from Mr. Maku.This is in line with international best practice,’’ APC said. The party further noted that the minister himself has not helped matters by the comments he made in an interview he granted the BBC yesterday, in which he insinuated that the state government had not initiated dialogue with stakeholders as a way of ending the crisis, and in which he tried to downplay the critical role that the state government has played in curtailing the activities of the Ombatse cult/ethnic militia. “In both instances,” the party said, “the minister has been economical with the truth. In the first instance, Minister Maku was invited to several meetings in the wake of the Ombatse attacks on Assakio and Agyaragu last year and the Alakyo massacre of security agents this year. He neither attended nor sent his apologies despite the invitations extended to him to be part of the meetings with traditional rulers, national and state legislators, as well as political and public office holders at federal and state levels, among others.’’ ‘“Also, the state governor has been briefing the president, on a regular basis, over the crisis. He has requested for the deployment to the state of a Mobile Police Squadron as well as troops.While the requests were granted, the deployments are just about being carried out, yet Minister Maku gave an erroneous impression concerning the role of the state government in curtailing the crisis.” According to it, the state government has compiled and sent to the federal government the names and addresses of the suspected leaders and major players in Ombatse, the perpetrator of the violence as well as instituting a judicial commission of inquiry into the violence, while assisting the victims of the violence state-wide. The party said the fact that the Minister and indeed any prominent Eggon citizen has yet to condemn Ombatse’s endless attacks on innocent citizens as well as security operatives is enough evidence of where their sympathy lies. APC say lack of internal democracy, cause of PDP crisis The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) disregard of internal party democracy and a penchant for imposition of candidates at its primaries has been identified by the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) as the cause of the ruling party’s numerous crises. APC’s Interim National Secretary, Mr. Tijjani Tumsah, said that in the lead up to the 2015 general elections, the APC was determined to deepen internal party democracy through transparent, credible and accepted systems of candidate selection for elections. Tumsah made the disclosure yesterday at a training for APC’s interim executive committee and staff of the APC secretariat on “internal party democracy and party organisation” organised by the International Republican Institute (IRI) in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Abuja. “The ruling party (PDP) as at now is embroiled with issues dealing with internal party democracy or lack of it. As a party (APC) , we are determined not to repeat same,” Tumsah said.
Posted on: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 14:13:49 +0000
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