Ahmed Makarfi’s PDP Under Fire For Chibok Girls Comment

Politics yesterday crept into the release of the 82 Chibok girls. The Ahmed Makarfi faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) criticised the swapping of the girls for Boko Haram suspects. But the Federal Government described the criticism as indecent and inhuman.

According to the government, the reaction showed that the party never wanted the girls freed. Also yesterday, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres urged Nigerians to embrace the freed schoolgirls.

Besides, the Ali Modu Sheriff-led faction of the PDP hailed the government for securing freedom for the girls by  swapping. Faulting Markarfi in a statement issued in Abuja, Information, Culture and Tourism Minister Lai Mohammed said it stood logic on its head for any individual or organisation to douse on the altar of politics the universal joy that greeted the release of the 82 girls. He described the number of the released girls as the highest so far since the April 14, 2014 abduction from their dormitory at the Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State under the watch of the PDP-led government.

According to him, from the ‘ill-advised statement, it is clear that the PDP, whose incompetence and cluelessness precipitated the Chibok girls’ crisis in the first instance,’ never wanted freedom for the abducted girls.

The statement reads: “In his inaugural address, President Muhammadu Buhari said the Administration cannot claim to have defeated Boko Haram without rescuing the Chibok girls. He also said this government will do all it can to rescue them alive.

“If that includes swapping some Boko Haram elements for the girls, so what? Will the PDP rather have the girls stay in perpetual captivity, just to prove a ludicrous point? Didn’t superpower United States engage in negotiations with the Taliban that led to the exchange of five Taliban fighters for US Army Sgt Bowe Bergdahl in 2014? Didn’t Israel release 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in 2011?

“A lot of factors come into play when a nation has to decide whether or not to engage in prisoner/hostage swap. None, however, trounces the sanctity attached to human life and the consideration for the pains of the loved ones of those involved.”

Mohammed noted that the disdain for human life as exhibited by the PDP statement was the same reason the girls were kidnapped in the first instance, and for which then PDP-controlled Federal Government took what seemed an eternity before even acknowledging the abduction,  thus losing critical time for their rescue.

“Since the PDP failed – as it did in everything – to rescue even one of the Chibok girls, the party should hold its peace while this administration continues to seek the release of all the abducted girls, using every means at its disposal, in addition to working assiduously to end all Boko Haram hostilities.” the minister said.