PDP lambasts ex- Gov Omehia for unpleasant remarks on North East Governors

From Ahmed Kaugama, Bauchi

The Deputy Publicity Secretary of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Abdullahi Jalo, has lambasted former Rivers State governor, Sir Celestine Omehia, over his alleged remarks on North East governors suggesting that they failed to arrest the Boko Haram insurgency in the sub region hence the need to sack them from office.

Omehia, while speaking on the insurgency that has gripped the country, particularly the north east, manifesting in suicide attacks and other wanton destruction of lives and property, put the blame squarely on the doorsteps of the north east governors arguing that they failed in their duty as the chief security officers of their states.

The former governor was reported to have said: “When I was governor of Rivers State, I met a bad situation on ground. The situation was that the cultists in the state had taken over Rivers State, everywhere, basically the Port Harcourt metropolis. And I didn’t leave it lying down. I didn’t leave it for the Federal Government. I took action before I invited the Federal Government. What did I do? I declared war against the cultists and decided that infringement on the rights of the citizens should come to an end.”

However, reacting to Omehia’s comments to newsmen in Bauchi, the PDP Deputy Publicity Secretary said cultists and Boko Harram sects were two different groups entirely, maintaining that the former was a more dangerous and multi-faceted group harbouring divergent interests beyond the capacity of the governors of the states.

Jalo said: “Celestine Omehia has misfired and he doesn’t know the details of the north east. The issue he has said about him dealing with cultists, he should know that cultists are one organization dealing with one particularly group while Boko Haram is mutlti-dimensional, having a lot of interests, a lot of foreign backing both open and secret.

“In the first place, despite the might of American, it has not stopped the existence of Al-Qaeda and the Al-Shabaab. Boko Haram is more dangerous than Al-Shabaab, which is fighting a political cause while Boko Haram is killing innocent Nigerians both Christians and Muslims. So there is no need for Omehia to blame the victims. We only need some correctional measure to stop this dangerous and deadly group of people” Jalo said.

Jalo maintained that Omehia needed not compare what he had done with cultism with the multi-dimensional attacks by the Boko Haram which is fighting the entire country.