The All Progressives Congress (APC) has urged President Goodluck Jonathan to cancel the political rally being planned for him by the Adamawa PDP for Tuesday, saying the President cannot and should not be celebrating when over 200 schoolgirls are missing.
“We hope and pray that our daughters are released safely even before Tuesday, 29 April when the rally is to be held, but until then, it is insensitive and indecent for anyone, least of all the President who is the father of the nation, to engage in any celebratory outing under any guise,” the party said in a statement issued in Lagos on Thursday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
It said the President must not repeat the faux pas he committed less than 24 hours after 75 of his compatriots were killed in the Nyanya bombing.
“All decent men and women were riled that President Jonathan went dancing at an illegal campaign stop in Kano and popping champagne corks at a birthday celebration in Ibadan when the smoke was yet to clear from the scene of the Nyanya bombing.
“The President should not repeat the same mistake, if indeed he considered that to be one. He should see the missing girls as his own daughters and stop forthwith his illegal campaign rallies,” APC said.
The party said the ongoing bickering over the site of the rally in Adamawa, close to the scene of the sad abduction of the girls, is distracting from what should be a concerted national effort to find the girls and reunite them safely with their families.
“For a President whose grovelling aides have likened to Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama and other great leaders in a patently blasphemous campaign, he should take time to ask himself how Obama would have reacted to one missing girl from any school in the US, not to talk of over 200 missing girls.
“Does President Jonathan honestly believe that Mandela, in his days as President, would have been campaigning when his compatriots are being daily bombed or abducted? Sycophancy has no limit, especially in an environment where many will disown even their children for pecuniary gains, but President Jonathan must rise above those who are justifying his insensitivity by saying the government cannot shut down so as not to give victory to Boko Haram.
“We are not saying the government should shut down. But the President must shut down all celebratory public outings and all political campaigns until our missing daughters are safely found and returned to their homes,” it said
