President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday criticised the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) for trying to justify the sporadic unrest that trailed presidential election in some states in the North.
Ten corps members, who participated in the conduct of the April general elections were killed in the process.
The President described the attempt by CPC to justify the unfortunate carnage and blood letting as vexatious in the extreme; adding that it amounts to rubbing salt on the raw wounds of families, who lost dear ones and valuable property to the carnage.
In a statement by his media aide Ima Niboro, the party (CPC) may well have planned it all, the president said the attempt is unfortunate and condemnable.
The CPC had through its legal adviser, Abubakar Malami, Tuesday, described the post- election violence in parts of the North as a reaction to a determination by the President to win the elections by any means.
But Niboro said: “This attempt by the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) to justify the unfortunate carnage and blood letting is vexatious in the extreme. It amounts to rubbing salt on the raw wounds of families who lost dear ones, and those who were maimed and lost valuable property to the carnage. It also amounts to an open admission that the party’s supporters were indeed behind the violence and that the party may well have planned it all.
“Malami went ahead to insult the sensibilities of Nigerians by drawing rather disingenuous parallels between these obviously orchestrated riots and the Western region crisis of theFirst Republic.”
“We recall the anger of of the people of the Western region in 1965 and the people of Ondo State in 1983 against the use of federal might to dislodge opposition governments in the Southwest in favour of the ruling parties at the federal level with concocted results”; Niboro quoted Malam as saying.