APC slams Jonathan over meeting with Chibok parents

Abuja - All Progressive Congress (APC) expressed “embarrassment” that it reportedly took a teenager to convince President Goodluck Jonathan to agree to a meeting with representatives of the parents of the kidnapped school girls.

"President Jonathan, who has already embarrassed himself and the entire people of Nigeria by his inexplicable failure to visit Chibok since the girls were abducted over 90 days ago, has compounded the embarrassment and insulted Nigerians by waiting for Malala Yousafzai to goad him to meet with the girls' parents, not in Chibok but in Abuja,” the party said in a statement issued in Lagos.

The 17-year-old Pakistan child rights campaigner was recently in the country in solidarity with the more than 200 school girls Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped in April.

Malala is said to have appealed to Jonathan, during a meeting, to meet the parents, whom he has not visited since the abduction.

Plans to meet the parents failed again despite Malala’s appeal.

“'Fortunately, and to the eternal discomfiture of the Presidency, the Chibok community has said the decision not to meet with President Jonathan in Abuja was theirs and theirs alone, and that they took that decision because their sole reason for coming to Abuja was to meet with Malala, and not the President who did not invite them anyway,” APC stated.

“With this explanation, one would have expected a Presidency that has regard for the truth to immediately retract its earlier panic statement, which it issued to save face after what was nothing but a PR gimmick blew up in their face, and apologize to the opposition and the #Bringbackourgirls group that were unjustly pilloried by them. 'Instead, the presidency has persisted in its distortion of the truth, for which they have now become infamous, even as a new date has been agreed for the meeting. This is unfortunate, condemnable and irresponsible,'' APC said.

APC said that neither in Nigeria's culture nor in any other culture are those hit by tragedy invited to be offered solace, adding that the practice was to visit those affected to offer them solace.

The party reiterated its earlier call on the President to “shake off his lethargy and bring the abducted school girls home safely, instead of playing politics with the lives of over 200 human beings.”

– CAJ News