Chibok abduction: APC mocks Patience Jonathan over Crocodile tears

The All Progressive Congress (APC) has lambasted the First Lady, Patience Jonathan over her outburst and tears regarding the over 200 abducted girls. The party described her reactions as distracting, counter-productive and calibrated to scapegoat others with the sole intention of exculpating her husband rather than finding the girls.

It warned that melodrama, highlighted by the shedding of made-for-television crocodile tears, cannot and will not bring the girls back safely to their parents.

''What will bring them back is a purposeful and sustained effort by the Federal Government, which has hitherto been tentative and lethargic. Therefore, enough of the distracting, absurd and overbearing show that the First Lady has put up in the past few days,'' APC said.

The party advised the First Lady to stop grand standing and to get real by leading a protest of other First Ladies from all the 36 states of the Federation from the Eagle Square to Aso Rock to pressure her husband, President Goodluck Jonathan, on whose laps falls the responsibility of leading the nation to find the girls, to act fast.

It also urged the First Lady to stop apportioning blames at this time so that all efforts can be geared towards finding the girls

''Our dear First Lady needs to be told clearly that her husband, the President, is the nation's Chief Security Officer. Our dear First Lady needs to be informed that because Borno State, where the unfortunate abduction took place, is under a state of emergency, her husband, the President, has automatically assumed all security powers. It is therefore wrong for our dear First Lady to be threatening to march on Borno to ask the Governor to produce the girls. That march should be to Aso Rock instead,'' APC said.


The party wondered where the First Lady derived the powers to summon elected and appointed officials to Aso Rock to answer her queries over the missing girls, saying by doing so, she is usurping the President's constitutional role, making him to look weak and ineffective in conducting the affairs of state and also making Nigeria the butt of jokes in the international community.

APC said if the First Lady would not heed the advice to stop summoning public officials to her executive chambers, then the officials should stop honouring such illegal and unconstitutional summons.

The party also took the First Lady to task over her comments that anytime she comes out, like a masquerade, something happens, wondering why then she did not deem it necessary to have come out in the first few days of the girls' abduction so that ''something would have happened''.