THE Presidency said Tuesday that the recent meeting of some governors, under the aegis of the All Progressives Change (APC), in Maiduguri, Borno State capital, was an act of political desperation.
It also said that the government would fish out the killers of the Kwara State Commissioner of Police who was murdered at the weekend in Enugu State.
Speaking with journalists in Abuja on Tuesday, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, said the visit of the governors to Borno State was to pre-empt the visit of Mr. President, which had been planned and scheduled several weeks ago.
President Goodluck Jonathan has been scheduled to visit the state tomorrow (Thursday). Okupe said: "This is surely an act of crass opportunism and political desperation on the part of these governors and the party they represent.
"We regard that visit as a media circus, stunt and photo-ops by these governors who were apparently in Maiduguri to feather their political nests. If one may ask, where were these governors in the last 18 months that they had been in office? It is obvious that it is part of their mobilisation drive that took them to Borno State rather than any patriotic call to duty. These are desperate power-mongers, who flock together in spite of their obvious conflicting political philosophies and inordinate ambitions."
Questioning the motive of the meeting of the opposition governors, Okupe said: "That visit, which was borne out of sheer political recklessness, could have caused Nigeria major security embarrassment but for the fact that the Federal Government and its security apparatus made extra efforts to ensure that the visiting governors were safe.
"Being elected officials, the onus was on the Federal Government to ensure that they were safe in spite of their being oblivious of the peculiar security implications and real potential dangers inherent in their hurriedly packaged visit."
The presidential spokesperson vowed that the government would spare nothing at ensuring that any murder of any Nigerian anywhere in the world is punished. He cited the example of those who carried out attack on the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero, recently that have been apprehended.
He said that certainly, isolated tragedies such as the killing of Mr. Chinwike Asadu cannot be taken as an index of failed state as being labeled by the opposition parties "because if that was to be so, many nations of the world, including some of the advanced countries, would be termed failed states.
"All over Europe and America, criminals engage in killings and mass murder, even of school children and nobody in those countries laid the blame on the president or head of government, talk less of using it to denigrate their countries as failed or failing state.
"A few days ago, a retired police chief, Bill Dowling aged 59, who was a station commander at Marlborough Police Station for over five years, was killed with his girlfriend in his home town in the United Kingdom. Till date, no opposition politician in the UK has insinuated that this was an evidence of a failed state or ineffective government in the area of security or law enforcement".
The Guardian