Equating Bank Robbery with Banditry and Terrorism Further Exposes Your Cluelessness – PDP to Gov Abdulrahman
The Kwara State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq’s attempt to equate the 2018 Offa bank robbery to the current escalating banditry and kidnapping crisis in the state as a exhibition of cluelessness and a shameful defensive political stunt.
The PDP’s in a statement by the State Publicity Secretary, Olusegun Olusola Adewara, reacted to the Governor’s comments during his visit to Oke Ode on Thursday, where he attempted to shift the blame for the state’s security collapse by reviving the Offa Bank Robbery tragedy, the PDP stated that the Governor has exposed his absolute lack of understanding of the problem he was elected to solve.
Governor AbdulRazaq’s deliberate comparison of a single, albeit tragic, bank robbery—an act of urban crime which happens even in developed countries —to the current widespread crisis of rural banditry, farm raids, mass kidnappings, and the resulting displacement of communities in Kwara North and South, is a shocking failure of executive comprehension.
Banditry and Kidnapping are a direct result of ungoverned spaces, failed intelligence, and a security infrastructure overwhelmed by trans-border criminal syndicates which summarily indicate leadership failure.
A Governor who fails to understand the fundamental difference between these two distinct threats is clearly incapable of devising the right solution. The Governor’s response confirms our assertion; a Governor who lacks understanding of a given problem cannot provide the right solution.
Our party considers the Governor’s outburst at Oke ode as not only unfortunate but also insulting to the people of Offa, whose scars from that dastardly act are yet to fully heal. To exploit their pains for cheap political point-scoring is the lowest any leader can descend to.
The Governor’s reckless claim that Dr. Saraki is in court over Offa Robbery is a barefaced lie already discredited by a critical organ of the Federal Government.
We remind Governor AbdulRazaq that the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) of the Federation, Mohammed U.E., after a thorough review of the Police investigation, explicitly stated that the DPP was “unable to establish a nexus” that linked Dr. Saraki to the Offa robbery suspects.
It is even laughable that a sitting Governor wants Kwarans to believe that a two-term Governor, former Senate President, and leader of Nigeria’s National Assembly at that time would sponsor daylight armed robbers and even brand their vehicles with his name. This is propaganda taken too far, a clear evidence of Governor Abdulrazaq’s desperation and poor sense of judgment.
It is disheartening and cruel that a Governor would stoop so low as to repeatedly use the painful, open wounds of the Offa community as a political defensive tool to shield himself from national criticism over his own poor performance and cluelessness in managing the rising insecurity. Offa people must stand up and condemn the Governor’s desperate attempt to exploit their trauma.
We wish to make it unequivocally clear to Governor AbdulRazaq: Saraki is not your problem, neither is the opposition party.
Your primary problem remains your own incompetence, cluelessness, and absenteeism in the face of a mounting security catastrophe. You cannot deprive the people of Kwara their constitutional right to express themselves about the worsening insecurity that is affecting their ways of life, forcing them to abandon their farms, schools, and homes.
Signed
Olusegun Olusola Adewara,
State Publicity Secretary,
Kwara PDP.