The statement signed in Lagos on Saturday by its national publicity secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said it found the comment “deeply offensive to human sensibilities” rather than providing hope and succour for the traumatised parents of the girls, The Punch reports.
It said a key role of presidents everywhere in times of tribulations and tragedies was to offer hope and be the consoler-in-chief, not to make statements that would deepen the suffering and sorrow of victims.
APC said one would have expected a president to speak on the basis of actionable intelligence, not some “twisted, melancholic and offensive logic.”
The party said the statement played on the fears of the parents of the girls and indeed of all Nigerians concerning the fate of the girls, who had been held in captivity for over 300 days, “with an impotent government” unable to rescue them.
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It said all that the parents of the girls as well as all concerned people around the world had wanted to know was what the Jonathan administration was doing to bring the girls home safely and as soon as possible, “not a depressing statement about their bodies being displayed via a video by Shekau if they had been killed.”
It said the Chadian president’s statement also contradicted the earlier claim by the Nigerian authorities that Shekau had been killed at least twice, the last of which was backed up with a ‘pictorial evidence’.
APC added, ”The Shekau that President Deby was referring to is the same Shekau that the Jonathan-led administration claimed to have killed at least twice, and the same Shekau the same administration is now seeking to capture alive.
”Mr. President (Jonathan), how many Shekaus do you want to kill or capture? Or is there a Shekau that is known only to your administration?”
Meanwhile, the coordinating minister for the economy and the minister of finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, yesterday visited Chibok on behalf of Jonathan and did something special for the community residents there.