Benue State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, on Saturday described the Minister of Defence, Mansur Ali as a “disgrace to democracy.”
The state arm of the party made the call in response to the defence put up by the Minister for the killer herdsmen in the state and across the country
Ali, had few days ago said the enactment of the Open Anti-Grazing law was responsible for the killing carried out by Fulani herdsmen.
Faulting the Minister’s claim, Chairman of APC in the state, Abba Yaro, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to sack Ali for defending the herdsmen.
In a statement signed and sent to DAILY POST by the party’s secretary, Peterhot, Yaro stressed that the Minister was an ingrate who once worked for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
The statement reads, “The Benue State Working Committee of our great party, All Progressives Congress led by the Chairman, Hon. Prince Emmanuel Abba Yaro, hereby states categorically that we read with utmost disgust the frivolous statement credited to the ‘supposed honourable’ Minister of Defence, Col. Mansur Muhammad Dan Ali where he reportedly told Nigerians and other members of the public that the attack on two communities in Benue that led to the death of over 70 innocent people and destruction of properties worth millions of Naira was as a result of the open grazing prohibition law enacted by the State Government.
“While we are still bewildered if the said statement truly emanated from the Zamfara born retired Military Colonel serving as our ‘supposed Defence Minister’, we consider this statement as a flatly ridiculous absurdity, and the highest level of public disgrace to democracy and the Nigerian populace.
“By this singular utterance, the Minister of Defence, Col. Muhammad Mansur Dan Ali (rtd) has inarguably displayed incontestable lack of the required sensibility and capacity to serve as Defence Minister in a country of over 180 million people with over 300 ethnic nationalities.
“We have therefore been constrained to believe that Mr. Mansur is a component unit of the perceived conspiracy against the good and hospitably peace loving people of Benue State.
“As an integral part of the country, Nigeria and as a State that gave President Muhammadu Buhari an edge in the 2015 general elections, we demand that Col. Mansur Dan Ali (rtd) resigns his position as Nigeria’s Defence Minister immediately and tender an unreserved apology to the good people of Benue State and the country at large.
“As a founding member and major stakeholder in our ruling party, the APC, we are forced to question Col. Mansur’s real motive and demand that he publicly explains to the party leadership why we should not conside his reckless utterances as a deliberate ploy to truncate the party’s victory in the 2019 general election. Through his statement, as an insider, Mansur appears to have been contracted by the opposition to work against the APC.
“In as much as we would not dignify Col. Mansur with obnoxious affronts, we would again want to inform him that he is not just an ingrate, but an unrepentant pathological opportunist who was in his farm working for the PDP when many of us toiled the nooks and crannies of this country to ensure victory for President Muhammadu Buhari in the election that brought him (Buhari) to power through which he (Mansur) is one of the biggest beneficiaries.
“As someone who read Photography in the polytechnic and later took to animal husbandry with flocks of cows to his credit in his Zamfara country home, we urge our President, Muhammadu Buhari GCFR, to aid Col. Mansur’s timely resignation and return him to his farm with a Xenon HD Camera to continue taking snapshots of his flock of herds back home.
“Minister Mansur apparently is one of those who are working against the unity of Nigeria and must be stopped now before he and others with such parochial, hateful, divisive and repulsive tendencies plunge the country into deeper crisis.
“We once again declare our staunch support for our dear Governor, Dr. Samuel Ortom, and herein reiterate our commitment towards making the open grazing prohibition law our number one priority in the State.”
Via Dailypost
