Fayose Under Fire for Comment on Chibok Girls

8 years ago

Fayose Under Fire for Comment on Chibok Girls

Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose has been heavily criticized for his recent comment on the abducted Chibok schoolgirls. Fayose had said the abduction was a ploy by the All Progressives Congress to ridicule the government of former President Muhammadu Buhari as he said the abduction was not true, but a political instrument to curry cheap political votes.

Although evidence abounds that the schoolgirls were kidnapped as shown in a video by Boko Haram and the fact that a former British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Dr. Andrew Pocock, said US and UK intelligence surveillance located the missing girls at the Boko Haram Forest but could not do anything as Nigerian authorities did not ask for help, the governor still insists.

A Punch report has shown that many Nigerians did not agree with the governor. The senator representing Osun-West senatorial district, Isiaka Adeleke, said Fayose should put himself in the shoes of the schoolgirls’ parents, adding that even former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan later admitted that the schoolgirls were kidnapped.

Adeleke, who is a member of the All Progressives Congress, said, “Fayose should not trivialise this touchy issue. The governor should use his time wisely and pray for the safe return of these girls.”

The senator representing the Osun-East senatorial district, Babajide Omoworare, has demanded the security agencies to interrogate the governor as he might have classified information relating to the abducted girls.

He said, “Security agents must invite Fayose for us to know where the schoolgirls are. He is probably having classified information. However, if he is playing politics as usual, it is cruel to mock the girls’ parents and Nigerians who are daily in agony and hoping that someday, the girls would come back alive.

“The Buhari administration will do all it can to bring back the girls and end the mockery from people like Fayose.”

Also speaking, a former member of the House of Representatives, Bamidele Faparusi, described Fayose’s claim as a threat to national security.

Faparusi said, “Governor Fayose has given the whole country the lead that these girls were neither missing nor dead. All we need to do is to ask him to tell the whole country where they are being kept and nothing more.

“The world-renowned activist, Malala, came to Nigeria to visit Dr Goodluck Jonathan and begged that these children must be recovered. Even after the abduction, some of these girls escaped and were later reunited with their families when Jonathan was still in the saddle.

“Could it be inferred here that the former President who is also a member of Fayose’s party, had lied against his own administration?”

A former Executive Secretary, Ayedire Local Government Council of Osun State, Gbenga Ogunkanmi, said that Nigerians should not accord Fayose attention. Speaking via a statement by his media aide, Ismail Usman, on Thursday, Ogunkanmi said Fayose had lost the sense of dignity and integrity.

He said, “It is shocking that a person occupying the exalted position of governor could open his mouth and gush out these insensible utterances. It shows how debased our political system is. It shows that something is wrong with how our political leaders emerge.”