Onyekachi Eze, 
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described as absurd, the arrest of Wednesday’s protesters in Katsina against the killings and banditry in the state and other parts of the north, by the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government.
PDP wondered why government would arrest, harass and detain victims of the bandits but negotiate with the assailants.
The party, in a statement by the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan called on the APC and its governors to come clean on their alleged links with insurgents and marauders.
“Such actions by the APC administration, in addition to utterances of its leaders, have continued to dishearten Nigerians while emboldening bandits and insurgents to continue to pillage our communities, hold towns to ransom and visit all manner of violence on vulnerable Nigerians in various parts of the country,” PDP stated.
It recalled the admission by government that the marauders were mercenaries from the Sahel region and armed deserters from late Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, noting further that the APC and its leaders were yet to explain the whereabouts of the thugs they imported as political mercenaries from neighbouring countries during the build-up to the 2019 general elections.
“Furthermore, the APC and its leaders are yet to answer how marauders who were already pushed to the fringes by the PDP administration, resurged under their watch.
“Nigerians can recall that prior to the 2015 general elections, insurgency had been extensively compressed, leading the successful conduct of the general election in all the 774 local governments across the country.
“It is therefore clear that the constant narrative by the APC that some local governments were under the control of insurgents, when it took over office, is a mere propaganda,” the party said.
