APC, SPN condemn Plateau attacks, urge prosecution of masterminds

• PDP declares seven-day mourning for victims of attacks

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has enjoined security agents to effect the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators of last Sunday’s mayhem in Plateau State. In a statement, the National Publicity Secretary, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, noted that the call was to serve as a deterrent to prospective purveyors of violence.
The APC noted: “Nothing can justify such descent to barbarism, bestiality and cruelty to a fellow man as witnessed with the gruesome killings.

“ While we grieve over the dead and commiserate with families and friends who have lost loved ones, we appeal to religious and community leaders to demonstrate true leadership, even in the face of this terrible challenge, by appealing to those affected not to take the laws into their hands and avoid utterances and actions that could provoke reprisal.

“We are confident that President Muhammadu Buhari’s prompt visit to Plateau State will help in providing some succour to the affected and reassuring everyone of Mr. President’s commitment to tackling the security situation in the country,” he said.To the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN), it was one killing too many.

It said: “This latest brutal attacks are said to be a reprisal for recent killings of herdsmen and rustling of cattle. The SPN condemns the killings on both sides. “We also condole with families of the herdsmen and others who lost their lives in the cycle of violence.“We call for the unity of herdsmen and farmers as the only basis to find solution to what is essentially a conflict over use of natural resources.”

According to the speaker of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, Onofiok Luke, the Federal Government must think outside the box for a sustainable solution to the menace.Fielding questions yesterday from journalists in Uyo on the recent killings in Plateau State and other places, Luke noted that the issue at hand was beyond partisan politics, suggesting that a bi-partisan approach should be deployed to check the mayhem.

However, the National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has declared a seven-day mourning for victims of the mayhem in Plateau State and other parts of the federation.

Consequently, it directed that its flags at all offices and formations should be flown at half-mast during the period.In a statement yesterday in Abuja, the party’s national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, urged the people of Plateau to exercise their rights as global citizens, work with other public-spirited Nigerians and groups and take President Muhammadu Buhari and his government to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague for “acting helpless in the face of continuous mass killings in our country.”

The PDP said it “firmly holds that the life of every Nigerian is sacred. All Nigerians must be protected whether they are Birom, Basange, Ebira, Tiv, Idoma, Hausa, Igbo, Fulani, Gbagyi, Yoruba or from any other tribe whatsoever.”“The fundamental duty of government all over the world is the protection of lives, and Nigerians can no longer continue to fold their hands while compatriots are being daily hacked down by marauders.”