Adamawa State Governor, Murtala Nyako, has disagreed with the claim by the Peoples Democratic Party that its states are more peaceful than those controlled by the All Progressives Congress, APC.
The ruling party had at its National Executive Council meeting in Abuja on Wednesday boasted that insurgency was more pervasive in APC states than its own states.
The party also gave President Jonathan a thump up, saying that he had effectively handled the rising wave of attacks in the Northeast.
But Nyako took up issue with the PDP on Thursday, asking it to desist from making inflammatory statements, which are at variance with facts on the ground.
Nyako, who left PDP along with four others for the APC last December, pointed out that it was wrong for the ruling party to claim that insurgency was prevalent in the opposition states when it was also raging in its domain.
The governor, who made his feeling known via a statement by his Director of Press and Public Affairs, Ahmed Sajoh, castigated the party for trying to play politics with national security.
The governor declared that more deaths had been recorded in the two PDP states of Kaduna and Plateau than Adamawa in the past two years.
He also pointed to the fact that the residence of the PDP-controlled Gombe state governor, Ibrahim Dankwambo was rocked by a bomb a few minutes after the party’s NEC meeting in Abuja just as pro-Biafran elements had stormed the Enugu Government House and radio station in two separate attacks.
While advising the PDP to avoid partisanship in matters relating to the security of Nigeria, Nyako reminded the party that the current spate of insurgency was neither a PDP nor an APC issue but a national challenge, which requires the support of all Nigerians to overcome.
The governor said: “The PDP which is the ruling party at the centre should realise that Mr. President is the President of Nigeria as such the whole country is his constituency.
“In the process of promoting the welfare of Nigerians and protecting the people of this country, every Nigerian matters whether he or she belongs to the PDP, APC or other political parties, including those who do not belong to any political party at all.
“It is rather ironic that explosions erupted in Gombe which is a PDP-controlled state while the statement was being made and some armed hoodlums stormed a radio station in Enugu another PDP state resulting in a number of deaths within the same period.
“We believe that the insinuation that PDP controlled states are more peaceful than ours is totally wrong. It is on record that more deaths were recorded in PDP states of Plateau and Kaduna States than in our state of Adamawa in the last two years.
“We have no segregated neighborhoods in Adamawa State; all our people live peacefully together in the same localities participating in activities as one entity. This situation does not exist in PDP-controlled states of Plateau and Kaduna where Christians and Muslims live in different neighborhoods and yet remain in perpetual fear. These are unfortunate situations that require more statesmanship than partisanship.
“We wish to respectfully advise the PDP to avoid partisanship when it comes to matters of security. The menace of insurgency is not an APC affair, it is not a PDP affair; it is a Nigerian problem.
“The only person with a pan-Nigerian mandate is the President of the Federal Republic. The mandate given to the PDP to run the Federal Government requires that such the responsibility of securing Nigeria and Nigerians should transcends partisan considerations,” Nyako said.