Abuja Blasts Fallout: PDP Has Failed The Nation Again - ACN

ABUJA, Oct 10, (THEWILL) - The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has slammed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for failing the nation and overheating the polity, as usual, with a series of faux pas in the aftermath of the unfortunate bomb blasts in Abuja during the country's 50th independence anniversary celebrations.

In a statement issued in Lagos today by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said instead of rallying Nigerians behind the President, as it is done in other climes in times of national tragedies, PDP members threw caution

to the winds and turned the President to a butt of jokes around the world with the call on him to resign or be impeached.

It said the call is a fallout of the dangerous internal wranglings within the PDP over who flies the party's flag in next year's presidential poll.

''At at a time that the opposition has maintained a dignified stance, it is within the PDP - a house divided against itself - that an ultimatum has been issued to the President to resign or be impeached! Had the call been made by the opposition, it might

have been understood. But coming from within the PDP? It is obvious that this party has collapsed hence it is incapable of providing leadership to the country,'' ACN said.

The party said never in the history of Nigeria has a political party been so divided against itself or threatened national unity as the PDP is doing presently, no thanks to the intractable zoning issue that has now split Nigeria along ethnic and geographic

lines perhaps more than at any other time in its history.

''Even the usually cohesive north is now sharply splintered over the lingering issue of zoning, hence the discordant tunes over whether or not President Jonathan is capable of leading the country. This is unfortunate.

''But it is not the first time this is happening. Right from the third term misadventure of former President Olusegun Obasanjo through the national debate on whether then VP Jonathan should take over as Acting President while his boss undergoes medical treatment in Saudi Arabia to the zoning imbroglio, it has been one discord after another within the PDP, the largest agglomeration of strange bedfellows in the world," the CAN claimed.

''Now, with general elections around the corner, the PDP has again behaved true to type, allowing its internal wranglings to threaten national peace and unity. Individual interests have overridden national interests, with dangerous consequences.'' ACN said.

''The internal problems of the PDP will ordinary not concern us but for the fact that it is now threatening national peace and security.''

It warned that the in fighting within the PDP must not be allowed to stifle the investigations into the Abuja bombings, since unraveling the cause and perpetrators of the deadly explosions will help in preventing a recurrence.

ACN also said President Jonathan must refrain from making comments that could be misconstrued to mean that he wanted to divert attention from the real culprits or point accusing fingers at his political opponents.

''At times like this, a president must always act presidential. Visiting the victims of the blasts, for example, is a presidential act. Jumping to conclusion on who is responsible is unpresidential, and the fallout is the issue of the presidency's credibility triggered by Henry Okah's allegation that he was approached by a presidential aide to prevail on MEND to withdraw its claim of responsibility for the blasts,'' the party said.