In the early hours of Monday 04/14/2014, a terrible blast rocked the ever busy Nyanya Park claiming not less than 50 lives.
The PDP in its official reaction by their spokesman, Olisah Metuh blamed the opposition. Keep in mind that so far no security agency has made public any report of the investigation of the blast. This piece of information is important because if Metuh who has no official link to and is holding no office with any of the security agencies will know the perpetrators of a blast even before those saddled, constitutionally, with the responsibility to fish out those behind the crime start work, two things may be possible:
(1) He is behind it himself.
He planned it all along with the intent to pin it on the opposition because of statements they had made which he perceived were directed at propagating violence and mass murder – that’s a good alibi.
(2) He knew all along when the opposition was planning the attack but kept quiet to make political capital should they succeed with the attack. Whichever be the case, DSS needs to pick Mr. (can’t call him chief because I don’t know what qualifies him to be one) Olisah Metuh to explain his role in the Nyanya Park blast.
Now let’s go to the main substance:
When Gov. Shetima of Borno State said Boko Haram was better armed, PDP said he, a governor on the platform of APC, must have an insider information on Boko Haram armament to make such a statement, by extension he is a sponsor. I had argued that I do not need to open students’ skulls to look at their brains before I’ll know who is more intelligent; the result of what they put on paper will give me who is.
Days later, Boko Haram attacked a school in Yobe killing scores of students; from the blue a document emerged trying by all means to link the Central Bank Governor (Sanusi Lamido Sanusi) who had just been suspended to the attack, with some even crediting him with membership of the opposition, APC. That document was spread by a hitherto unknown name (Wendel Simlin), later shown by tech savvy persons to be an alias of Reno Omokri a staff of the PDP controlled presidency.
After today’s attack, a PDP spokesman is playing another card linking APC to the attack. What a way to value human life!
I brought to fore these three examples to show that the PDP’s eagerness to blame APC for violence in Nigeria is not new. Equally not new is the fact that even though they claim to have facts that link the opposition to violence, they have failed to use same to nail those involved so as to stop the violence. They may be waiting for 2015 to slap and rub the facts in their faces or they just enjoy watching as APC kills us all day after day.
My pain and anger is not in PDP trying to pin the attack on the opposition, because such an attempt is at best a stupid display of low-life stupidity and immaturity. A man who fails to prevent the death of his children but turns around to quickly blame his brother staying with him who wants to take over his wife as the culprit is not only stupid, but insensitive, inhuman and patently useless. Such to me is the definition of the People’s Democratic Party now.
I am angered because Olisah Metuh and by extension PDP would prefer to use, of all happenings in Nigeria today, the needless death of Nigerians to glean some political capital which has and is continually slipping through its fingers by the careless conduct and statements of those connected to it. To do such a thing alone shows insensitivity to the plight of the bereaved and wounded, but to do it when the heat from the blast has not yet dissipated, the smoke still thick in the air and the fire still raging with the injured still on their way to the hospital and the dead to the morgue is wicked and evil.
Let’s us analyse the Metuh-PDP Campaign of Calumny presented as a statement on the Nyanya blast. The entire report has eleven (11) paragraphs, of this only three (3 – 27%) deal with the attack, six (6 – 55%) are reserved in proving the opposition has a hand, two (2 – 18%) paragraphs invite others to join PDP, to ask sponsors of violence to repent and thank those who shelved official engagements as a result of the blast. This is like cooking 3 cups of egusi and putting 6 cups of pepper – it can’t be egusi soup with pepper added, it must be pepper soup with egusi added to it. What Olisah Metuh did was to find an occasion to paint the opposition bad but then remembered to throw in a few words on the blast itself to give it a semblance of expression of shock over the incident. This is what makes the PDP statement shocking (but not out of character from whom it came), irresponsible, annoying, childish and above all stupid. You don’t go to condole a man whose child was killed and begin to reel out names of those you think may be responsible; that’s unheard of, at least in my part of the world.
Now to some pertinent questions:
1. If Olisah Metuh and PDP know that the opposition is responsible for the attacks by virtue of their statements, whose job is it to call them to order? Is it not the PDP led government? And if they have not been called to order until scores of lives are lost, who has failed? Is it not the PDP government?
2. Since Olisah Metuh and PDP are so sure APC by their statements is promoting violence yet the government they control has not deemed it fit to bring to book those found to have made statements in favour of violence, should we take it to mean the government they (PDP) control is deliberately allowing the death of citizens it swore to protect so as to have an opportunity to point an accusing finger on the APC?
3. Since some PDP members/apologists have at one point or another made statements that were widely perceived as fueling the embers of violence, how is Metuh able to separate the violence attributable to the statements made by APC and those by PDP?
4. If no investigation has been done, yet Metuh traces this blast to APC, is it a sign he knew of the attack before it happened? If YES, why didn’t he stop it by reporting to appropriate agencies? Does this not make him culpable in the crime? (Withholding information that could have stopped a crime from the authorities).
A word of advice to Mr Metuh; the Holy Book I read says “Even fools are thought wise when they keep silent; with their mouths shut, they seem intelligent” (Prov 17:28 NLT).
I conclude – again with these words; a man who cannot prevent the death of his children but turns around to quickly blame his brother staying with him who wants to take over his wife as being responsible for the deaths is not only stupid, but insensitive, inhuman and patently useless. Such to me is the definition of the People’s Democratic Party now.
By Amene Terheme
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of The Herald