The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has strongly criticized the All Progressives Congress-led federal government for condemning the speech delivered by Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State at the Opposition Summit in Ibadan. The federal government and the APC described the speech, which referenced 'Operation Wetie', as a call to violence.
According to the PDP, the government's reaction reflects the panic of an animal cornered by its own misdeeds. The party stated that Governor Makinde's use of history served as a caution and advisory to the Federal Government, the APC, and other national institutions regarding the unmitigated crisis that their actions and inactions can cause.
'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,' the party said. The PDP emphasized that Governor Makinde offered a sobering reminder that when insatiable political greed and avarice replace patriotism and good governance, compounded by the accumulated anger and frustrations of the citizenry, the resultant conflagration will be of immeasurable proportion.
'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,' the PDP added.
The party recalled that when the APC was in opposition, they did not merely threaten violence but 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.'
The PDP warned that as long as the targeted state-sponsored decimation of the opposition continues, 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.'
'Finally, the responsibility for any violence in the build-up to or immediately after the 2027 elections lies squarely at the doors of the Federal Government, the All Progressives Congress, INEC, and every national institution charged with the defence of democracy. The citizens know the aggressors from the victims, and the APC's attempt to play victim has failed woefully,' the party concluded.
