By Akinwale Kasali
The Federal Government through its utterances compounded the prospects of the early release of over 300 students abducted in Katsina State, Alliance for the Survival of Covid 19 and Beyond, (ASCAB) said on Friday.
ASCAB welcomed the release of the students but cautioned against feeding Nigerians with fake news.
In a statement signed by the coalition’s Chairman, Mr Femi Falana, (SAN), the group said President Mohammadu Buhari’s spokespersons, Shehu Garba appeared to relish in harvesting political capital out of the misery of the kidnapped students.
ASCAB asks the Federal Government to provide adequate security for all private and public institutions in troubled areas.
The group said the release of the students does not mean it will not happen again, urging the Presidential spokesperson to learn to be honest and reflect the truth in all situations.
“Each time there is a national tragedy, the Presidential spokesperson, by his utterances injure the psyche of grief-stricken families and hurt the conscience of the country” ASCAB said, adding that Garba Shehu has reduced the Presidency to butts of jokes and public ridicule in the social media.
ASCAB said statements from the Presidential spokesperson focus more on defending the image of the government, albeit poorly, rather than sharing the grief of victims, their troubled relatives and restoring hope in a despairing population citing the recent response of Shehu Garba immediately after hundreds of students were kidnapped in Katsina State.
The group said the local and international communities have taken such tactless statements as the official position of the President adding that the position merely adds salt to the festering wound of the depressed families.
“The release of the students has exposed the hypocricy of the Presidency and its penchant for spreading fake news. Even in the face of figures given by Governor Aminu Masari, the Katsina State Governor, Garba for instance keeps quoting numbers far less than the well known facts. He started by saying escaped students claimed 10 students were in the kidnapper’s den. But the official figures from the Katsina state Government who should know better puts the figure at no fewer than 333 students.”
Shehu has since apologised for the misinformation.
The students of Government Science Secondary School were kidnapped last weekend at Kankara in Katsina State fueling public outrage. They were freed on Thursday, after six gruelling days in the hands of Kidnappers.
Earlier, over 70 farmers were slaughtered by the extremist group Boko Haram in Zabamari Community in Jere Local Government of Bornu State. On Monday, 19 people were said to have been kidnapped in Niger State after killing at least one person. This occurred two days after the Katsina incidence.
ASCAB said the Spokesperson is always desperate to defend the President in the most inconsistent, self-defeatist and sometimes ridiculous manners.
“Nigerians are accepting the fact that President Buhari’s image makers are more interested in twisting facts and presenting fake news to Nigerians than presenting the narrative of every event with utmost sense of responsibility to good conscience and to the Nigerian public.”
ASCAB made reference to the killing of more than 78 farmers in Bornu State when Garba Shehu’s first response was to accuse the farmers of failing to take permission from the military as if farming is illegal and that citizens ought to seek the right of protection from security insitutions before going to their work places.
“We expect the President and Commander-in-Chief to know that Nigerians irrespective of the work they do should be protected by security operatives. It is even more important to know that farmers deserve special protection in troubled zones” ASCAB said.
