Alleged threat to violence: Blame Tinubu, APC, not Makinde – PDP insists

By Jude Opara

The Tanimu Turaki led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the ruling All Progressives
Congress (APC) and many of its members serving in government, of having continued to issue series of statements against Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo state over alleged inciting comments at the just concluded political summit of opposition political parties that held in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital.
In a statement on Sunday, National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Ini Ememobong said instead of criticizing Governor Makinde the APC should rather heap their anger against President Bola Tinubu and the ruling party, for failing to have delivered on the campaign promises of safeguarding the country..
Ememobong added that the APC is rather angry since after the successful summit and that the anger is what has been fueling the “Operation Wetie” narrative.
He added that Governor Makinde was only trying to warn politicians against the politics of intimidation and exclusion, intimidation and uncontrollable violence caused by political greed of the tehn ruling class
“One of their numerous pain points arising therefrom is the historical recollection of ‘wetie’
-a sad descent into uncontrollable violence, caused by the political greed of the then ruling party and its concomitant asphyxiation of the opposition.
“The use of history in the way and manner done by Governor Makinde in the said speech served as a caution and advisory to the Federal Government, the APC, and other national institutions, of the unmitigated crisis that their actions and inactions can result in. Only a guilty aggressor can interpret it to mean a threat or call to violence. It is common knowledge that those who do not learn from history are doomed by it.
“Governor Makinde offered a sobering reminder that when insatiable political greed and avarice replace patriotism and good governance, and are compounded by the accumulated anger and frustrations of the citizenry, the resultant conflagration will be of immeasurable proportion. This again is a fact that history bears witness to”.
He further insisted that current events in the Nigerian political setting are similar to the events that led to the unfortunate mayhem in the defunct Western region where houses and property of opposition politicians were doused with fuel and burnt.
“The events that led to the sad incident of ‘wetie’ and the current happenings within the political space, as orchestrated by the APC, are not just similar but identical in both intent and execution. To continue doing the same thing while expecting a different
result is the very definition of political recklessness.
“When pushed to the wall, people have no other direction to go but forward, against the wall itself. The current slide into elected totalitarianism has been entirely engineered by the APC and the Federal Government. They cannot decry the effect while remaining willfully blind to the cause and to their own culpability in it”.
Ememobong also recalled events that happened when the APC was in the opposition, with several alleged threats against the tehn ruling party the PDP.
“When the APC was in opposition, they did not merely threaten violence, they openly promised to make the country ungovernable, with the infamous baboon and blood narrative. They therefore lack any moral capacity to complain about a mere historical recollection by a sitting governor.
“As long as the targeted state-sponsored decimation of the opposition continues, the opposition parties will explore increasingly potent strategies, entirely within the ambit of the law, to prevent the enthronement of a one-party state under an elected dictator.
“The APC should be ashamed of their comprehensive failure in both governance and politics, and their resort to the crude tactics of inducement, intimidation and persecution of opposition leaders”.
The PDP spokesman also reminded the APC and its supporters that they work towards safeguarding the entire country, because that is their cardinal responsibility.