A former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National legal adviser, Mark Jacob, has accused the All Progressive Congress, APC, in Kaduna State, of being instrumental in the incessant killings and crisis in the state.
According to Jacob, it is the responsibility and the primary function of every government to provide security to the lives and properties of its citizens.
He accused the Governor Nasir El-Rufai administration of playing dumb to the killings in the state because it is happening in the Southern part of the state.
Jacob said boldly that the APC has failed woefully in the state and hence deserve no further chances to rule.
He said the PDP should have itself to blame if it loses the 2023 governorship election in Kaduna State.
According to him, the campaign has already been concluded in the state by the actions and negligence of the ruling APC.
He said the issue of insecurity in the state and unending religious and tribal clashes were enough reasons to disqualify the ruling party.
Bibian Anekwe News understands that Jacob made the allegations against APC while speaking with journalists in Kaduna.
The former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in the state said it was possible to end the wanton killing in Kaduna if the government does the right thing, insisting that the government has at its disposal the instrument of coercion and is protected by law.
There is a singular issue that matters and that is the security of lives and property. Kaduna State has been ravaged, the state has never heard this experience, we have never seen it even during the civil war. Yes there has been a religious crisis in the past here and there but with the number of human beings that have been gruesomely murdered, we are not talking of a situation where people are fighting each other no, we are talking of where citizens sleeping in their homes are rounded up and killed,” Daily Post quoted Jacob as saying.
Reiterating his claims, Jacob said: “Now someone may ask, how is it an APC problem? Are they the ones that are killing the people and l said very bluntly, that the responsibility and the primary function of the government is to provide security of lives and properties of the people.”
It is only the government that is protected and given the right to use force to protect citizens or for any purpose.
”Today, we have seen a situation where the government of Nigeria, particularly, Kaduna State principally from the year 2016, 2017, 2018 to date that the killings started in the era of this government and government treated everything with light mindset purposely because the killings were happening in the Southern part of the state.”
The politician condemned in totality Governor El-Rufai’s approach to the situations in the state, describing it as an embarrassing, undemocratic way of addressing things.
Jacob added: “everybody knows and the records are there for everybody to see that the government of Kaduna State was hostile to the victims, the government failed and said it was the victims that were responsible for the killings.
“We have it on record where the governor and officials of government will say that Churches, Church leaders and traditional rulers are behind the killings in Southern Kaduna. People in government bluntly and cruelly said so and even vowed to deal with all the Church leaders.”
Jacob stressed that the government’s approach to the lingering issues is poor.
He said the Kaduna State government was comforted in telling people stories and by telling the whole world that the killings in Southern Kaduna were largely reprisals from the so-called killing of foreign Fulanis in 2011.
“We were in the city in 2011 when the crisis broke out, it was not a Southern Kaduna issue, it was started here in the city when aggrieved persons who lost the 2011 presidential election went out armed with guns and cutlasses and targeted all persons they perceived to be PDP members or followers and it spread from Kaduna North and Kaduna South and to other parts of the state and people were killed, properties were destroyed. It continued for two days in Kaduna and other northern cities,” the legal practitioner explained.
He added: ”Southern Kaduna communities also joined in the protest and started burning and looting people’s properties, an area that is predominantly a PDP area. That was what also caused the problem in the Southern Kaduna because the minorities also perceived that they lost the election and because the massive followers of the PDP had surprisingly launched attacks against the majority and that was when people in Southern Kaduna also reacted.”
Bibian Anekwe News
