PDP Faction’s Statement On Freed Chibok Girls Indecent, Inhuman – FG

The Federal Government has described as indecent, inhuman and
ill-timed the statement credited to a faction of the PDP criticising
the process that led to the release of the 82 Chibok Girls over the
weekend.

In a statement issued in Abuja on Monday, the Minister of Information
and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said it is patently insensitive for
any individual or organization to seek to douse, on the altar of
politics, the universal joy that has greeted the release of the 82
girls – the highest number so far freed since their unfortunate
abduction under the watch of the PDP over three years ago.

He said from the ill-advised statement, it is clear that the PDP,
whose incompetence and cluelessness precipitated the Chibok girls
crisis in the first instance, is not wishing and praying for it to end
with the safe return of the abducted girls.

”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,” Alhaji Mohammed said.

He said it is clear that the kind of disdain for human life which the
PDP exhibited in its incautious statement is the same reason the poor
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.