The All Progressives Congress, APC, has accused President Goodluck Jonathan of promoting impunity, unconstitutionality and overheating the polity thus threatening the peace and stability of the country.
The party said that President Jonathan, more than any other leader in the history of the country, has promoted and encouraged impunity and unconstitutionality, divisive policies and exploited religious and ethnic differences – all in his attempts to cling to power till 2015 and beyond.
Reacting to last week’s blockade of the Rivers State Government House, by the police, the party in a statement issued by its national publicity secretary, Lai Mohammed, blamed the President for the incident, noting the police would not have taken the action if they were not assured of support from higher authorities.
“As far as the crisis in Rivers is concerned, the buck stops on the President’s desk. Here is a President who decided, unwisely, to make the election of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum a referendum on his administration’s credibility. Even after he lost woefully, he has failed to learn his lessons, as he has continued in his hot pursuit of a fellow-elected political leader,” the APCsaid.
The party warned that giving presidential backing to the police or any national institution at all to commit impunity and violate the nation’s constitution, is the fastest means to destroy such institutions and erode public confidence in them.
”In the case of the police, what is happening in Rivers is sending a wrong signal to the polity concerning the role of the force in 2015. How can a malleable police be trusted to be neutral and to help ensure the conduct of a free and fair election – with the President as a candidate – in 2015?” APC queried.
Condemning the act of using police force as a mechanism to harass, intimidate, arrest and persecute all his real and perceived political enemies, the party said the police under President Jonathan, has increasingly become a lawless institution whose allegiance is only to the President and not to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The APC noted that since the onset of the Jonathan-inspired political logjam in Rivers State and the implosion of PDP, the President has been depending on the police to shore up his dwindling political fortune.
Instances given by the party include the insubordination of the Rivers State police commissioner Joseph Mbu; the police-sponsored fracas in the Rivers State House of Assembly; the assault on the five visiting governors by thugs and the unlawful occupation of the new PDPSecretariats in Abuja and Lagos.
APC also stated that the President has set an unenviable record of being the first sitting President of the country to suffer the indignity of being walked out upon by governors and federal legislators elected under the platform of his own party; as well as senior members of the same party at its National Convention in the full glare of local and international media.
”Under his watch, his party which at the height of its self delusion prided itself as the biggest party in Africa that is destined to rule the country for the next 60 years has now imploded and the fallout of this implosion is threatening the fragile unity of the country,” the party said.