The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in February polls, Atiku Abubakar, has blamed the rising killings and crimes in the country on defective policies and actions of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Atiku was reacting to a report by a “US-based Centre for Diplomacy and Democracy” accusing him of having a hand in the killings in the country.
The former vice president said there is no such centre in the US, describing it as a fabrication of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
“No such body called Centre for Diplomacy and Democracy exists,” he said in a statement Paul Ibe, his media adviser, issued on his behalf on Thursday.
“Americans will never write ‘Centre’. They will write ‘Center’ in conformity to American English usage.
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“This is the deepest low that Muhammadu Buhari administration has gone in causing further division and promoting instability in Nigeria.
“Anyone versed enough in the protocol of international NGOs will discern without much ado that the particular report by a faceless, insipid organisation known as ‘Centre for Diplomacy and Democracy’ was contrived with express mobilisation from officials of the Buhari administration in a shameless and disingenuous attempt to find a jejune explanation for the rising rate of insecurity in Nigeria.
“It is so distasteful that the Buhari administration, rather than have a self-introspection and admit to the world that its policies and actions are responsible for the divisions in the country with the manifestation of all manner of crimes such as banditry, kidnapping and wanton killings across the land chooses to employ the service of a faceless NGO to blame the opposition for its own ineptitude.”
Atiku also knocked the president over his comment that Mohammed Adamu, the inspector-general of police (IGP), had lost weight due to his hard work.