APC to sue PDP, Metuh

The All Progressives Congress on Tuesday said it would sue the Peoples Democratic Party and its spokesman, Olisa Metuh, for allegedly maligning the opposition party’s name.

The Interim National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Lai Mohammed, said this in a telephone interview with The PUNCH in Abuja.

Mohammed’s revelation came in a reaction to a statement by Metuh earlier in the day in which the PDP spokesman condemned the Adamawa State Governor Murtala Nyako’s letter to his northern colleagues on alleged genocide against northerners.

“Mr. Metuh should save his explanations until he gets to court because surely the party (APC) and all he had maligned will sue him.” Mohammed said and refused to give further details on the planned court action.

Metuh, in his statement on Tuesday, described as shocking the Nyako’s memo on the insurgency in the North-East zone.

Nyako had in the memo addressed to the Northern Governors Forum likened the ongoing military action against the insurgents in the North-East to the activities of the mastermind of the holocaust against the Jews, Adolf Hitler of Germany.

He also raised the alarm that President Goodluck Jonathan, who he described as a President from the former South-East, was carrying out genocide against Fulani people in the country.

Metuh said that it was shocking for such a letter to have emanated from an elected person.

He charged Nyako to desist from writing such a memo and to take a cue from other leaders of the APC, who, according to him, had started guiding their utterances.

“Governor Nyako must desist from such and learn from other APC leaders who are now comporting themselves better as a response to PDP statements, which succeeded in exposing the link between their unguarded utterances and escalation of violence and insurgency in our nation,” he said.

He said that the PDP would continue to caution the APC leaders against making statements that could “fuel violence and motivate insurgency in the country.”

The PDP spokesman said, “As a responsible party, the PDP has made its point on the utterances, comments and statements by politicians which tend to influence and/or instigate people to violence and we believe that our statements have made APC and some of their leaders more responsive to their collective duty of verbal restraint.

“However, we still decry attempts by the APC to seek cheap publicity by making classless, childish, immature and ineffective statements on terrorism matters. Sometimes they even speak as if they control their actions.”

Metuh however called on the President and the governors of the 36 states to proffer solutions to the threat of terrorism in the country.

He also enjoined the citizenry to unite against terrorism and divisive tendencies in the society.

Meanwhile, a former Military Governor of Kaduna State, Col. Abubakar Umar, on Tuesday condemned Nyako over his allegation that the Jonathan administration had been plotting genocide against the north.

Umar, in an interview with newsmen in Kaduna, noted that Nyako’s memo was aimed at inciting the governors of the region against the President.

He said it was shocking and disturbing that such allegation was coming from a former military top brass like Nyako and at a period when the nation was not at peace.

Umar, who lost his commission in the wake of the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, wondered what the governor, a former Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, was out to achieve with such a memo.

PUNCH