The Presidency has lashed out at Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa, describing the controversial letter he wrote to governors of Nigerian northern states as a betrayal of trust by a major beneficiary of the Nigerian nation.
The Presidency’s reaction is contained in a statement by the Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe, on Saturday in Abuja.
In the statement, it said Mr. Nyako’s letter to the northern governors “is an unmitigated leadership disaster’’.
Mr. Nyako had written to the Northern States Governors Forum, accusing the Federal Government of carrying out genocide against Nigeria’s northern states.
He alleged that President Jonathan had no exit strategy to the problem of insurgency, and was complicit in the attack by various armed groups on various communities in Northern Nigeria.
He also accused the Jonathan administration of being responsible for the wanton destruction of lives and properties and kidnapping of school children in the north-east.
But in its reaction, the Presidency described Mr. Nyako’s action as an open endorsement of the Boko Haram insurgency.
“The content of Nyako’s letter exposed him as lacking a sense of history as well as incapable of rising above parochial sentiments.
“The letter was extremely divisive and intentionally meant to incite one section of the country against the other.
“Nyako’s action is a pathetic embarrassment to the Nigerian military, from where he derives his career antecedents,” Mr. Okupe said.
The presidency further described as hypocritical, Mr. Nyako’s remark that the Boko Haram terrorist group was a “phantom organisation’’ which does not exist.
It said Nyako’s invitation to the other northern governors to join him to sue the Federal Government “definitely defies common sense’’.
The Presidency requested the Adamawa Governor to publish his state’s yearly budget for the past five years to show how much was voted or spent to support the war on terror.
“This will also reveal how much he has spent to assist victims of insurgents’ activities in his state, if any. “We can recall that the governor was publicly attacked recently by angry youths who accused him of failure to support victims of Boko Haram attacks on innocent citizens of the state,’’ it said.
The Presidency therefore urged Nigerians to ignore Mr. Nyako’s letter, saying its ignoble aim was to create disaffection among Nigerians and polarise the country along ethnic lines.
“It was also aimed at discrediting the Federal Government which has continued to work hard to fully eliminate insurgency and destroy their support base. “The insurgency was meant to provide the perpetrators unrestricted opportunity to further unleash terror on innocent citizens.
“It is a situation which they intend to exploit to undermine the administration and truncate our growing democracy. This, Nigerians will surely not allow to happen,’’ it said. The Presidency assured Nigerians of Federal Government’s continuous determination to defeat terror and restore peace to every part of northern Nigeria.
“This is critical to ensure that law-abiding Nigerians go about their socio-economic pursuit without hindrance in all parts of the country,’’ it said.
(NAN)
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