Adamawa State Governor Murtala Nyako, again came under attack on Wednesday for accusing President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration of carrying out genocide in the north eastern Nigeria.
The governor had in a memo sent to the Northern States Governors’ Forum, called on his colleagues to look into the allegation.
But, Senior Presidential aide on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe, had in a swift reaction lambasted the governor, saying his comment was an ‘unmitigated leadership disaster’.
Also, the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, while fielding questions on the abducted school girls from State House correspondents after the weekly Cabinet meeting, described governor Nyako’s comment as “irresponsible and unfortunate”.
On the abducted students of the Government Girls’ College, Chibok in Borno state, Maku said “The security forces are still on the heels of these kidnappers and efforts are being deployed, unfortunately we are not fighting a standing army.
“The work of defeating terror is be united. And for us citizens who have information that can lead to fishing out these girls and other criminals in the system to give that information.
“So a lot of working is going on and nobody is resting. Our prayer is to get them safe and that they will not be abused by those who criminally abducted them.
“The attention of the world, the President and Governors is on the search of those girls and a lot of work is going on, is the number one priority today in terms of synergy and we will continue to call for public cooperation.
“Each time the security people strike our target there is a lot of public uproar and propaganda which is weakening out national resolve to fight terror”
Maku, seized the opportunity to lashed out at Adamawa governor Nyako, saying “This nation deserves security at this time even in the heat of it; you hear some irresponsible comments coming from highly placed people including a governor.
“Now this nation is in need of unity but the way we are playing to the gallery, we are making irresponsible statements. We are making statement that will divide the country, statements that are setting the citizen against security services and government.
“And when those statements come from people we believe should be leading the course of unity, appreciating the great job the security are doing. If only Nigerians understand that as we sit in this hall, our security people are out there in the bush sleeping in the bush day and night and getting killed in the cause of maintaining the security of this country.
“But what we see is that everybody who has little knowledge on how security services are rendered will just open their mouth and make statements that create panic in the country and this is very unfortunate.
“To hear the kind of things being said by the governor of Adamawa State at this period is very unfortunate.
“Nyako is the former Chief of Naval Staff, is someone that has worn uniform before, to publicly incite the people against the security forces of this country is the height of irresponsibility.
“And I believe that for someone like that who is old enough to appreciate the kind of crisis this country is going through. We expected that they should be greater understanding, politics aside.
“When people reach a certain age they should watch their utterances and the kind of things they are supposed to say.
“Maybe young people like you and me we can say is lack of experience, but people that have known the difficulty this country is going through and the kind of effort that is being made by the federal government be coming out to make those statements that divide the country even at a point that we need national unity and national healing is grossly irresponsible,” Maku said.
