APC alleges PDP members’ complicity in Boko Haram sponsorship

THE blame game over the actual sponsor of the Boko Haram insurgents continued yesterday as the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) insisted that the President Goodluck Jonathan-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) should be held responsible for the death of thousands of Nigerians and destruction of property worth billions of naira due to the activities of the Islamist group.

   Meanwhile, former governor of Lagos State and chieftain of APC, Senator Bola Tinubu, has replied former Foreign Affairs Minister, Chief Tom Ikimi, on sundry allegations made against him by him while dumping the opposition party recently, describing them as cheap blackmail.

    National chairman of APC, Chief John Oyegun, who addressed journalists claimed that a footage wherein a self-acclaimed negotiator for the Federal Government, Mr. Steven Davies, on the “Arise News Now UK” television station leaves every discerning Nigerian convinced about the actual brain behind the insurgents.

   Oyegun, who aired the footage to reporters at the party’s secretariat in Abuja, particularly accused President Jonathan-led PDP of sponsoring the insurgency group to purely achieve political gains.

He described a former governor of Borno State as not only a mole who was frustrated out of the APC fold, but as PDP’s foot soldier as far as the sponsorship of the insurgency group was concerned.

   He thereby urged President Jonathan to arrest and forward the former Borno State governor and a former Chief of Army Staff, as well as others linked to the insurgents to the International Criminal Court of justice for investigation and subsequent prosecution over the committal of crime against humanity.

   The text of Oyegun’s statement reads in part: “Now that the cat has been let out of the bag and the real sponsors of Boko Haram have been exposed, we hope President Jonathan will summon the courage to do the right thing: Hand over the identified Boko Haram sponsors to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation and prosecution.

  “There is no doubt that Boko Haram has committed crimes against humanity in its scorched-earth campaign against unarmed citizens, and the most appropriate body to investigate and try the sect’s sponsors is the ICC.

  “According to Article 17 of the Rome Statute that set up the ICC, and to which Nigeria is signatory, the ICC is a court of last resort, expected to exercise its jurisdiction only if states themselves are unwilling or unable genuinely to investigate and prosecute international crimes.”

  In his reaction to Ikimi’s allegations, Tinubu, in a statement, said: “Ordinarily I would not have responded to Ikimi’s lengthy chronicle of falsehoods, cheap blackmail and abuse. My only reason for this response is that I know Ikimi’s style. He subscribes to the view that no matter how unbelievable a lie may sound, if you brazenly assert it and repeat it often enough, you may persuade many that it is in fact true.  I have seen Ikimi perpetrate this deviousness in his years in public life.

  “Regarding Ikimi’s bid for the chairmanship of the APC, it was clear to practically everyone who had the interest of the party at heart that we simply could not have a man of Ikimi’s antecedents as chair of the party. As chairman of the NRC, one of the only two political parties in the country under the military transition programme, Ikimi not only connived with the then military regime to annul the elections, terminate the democratic process and sell off his party, he became Abacha’s foreign minister, convincing the world that heinous state murders like the hanging of Ken Saro Wiwa were just acts!   If Ikimi were the chair of APC, the party would have to sleep with both eyes open lest its chairman sell off the party before daybreak.

  “No matter what anyone may say about me, it is unlikely that I can be accused of supporting incompetent or morally light-weight individuals for important political positions. My philosophy is to put the best forward, men and women of competence and integrity, who can stand up to us politicians to challenge