The ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, has chided the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, over the latter’s criticism of President Muhammadu Buhari’s approach in tackling the coronavirus pandemic.
Situating its criticism on the premises of the ‘mysterious deaths’ in Kano State, the PDP had alleged both Buhari and the governor of Kano, Abdullahi Ganduje, of politicizing the strange occurrence in the state.
It also tagged the APC-led government as ‘insensitive and incompetent’ due to its alleged inability to arrest the situation.
As the country continues to battle the coronavirus scourge, there have been reports of strange deaths in Kano in the last seven days, even though the governor of the state, Ganduje, denied this.
An angry PDP had then accused Ganduje of politicizing the health issues in the state by “resorting to unnecessary denials and pecuniary concerns”. It called on President Buhari to investigate the matter.
In its reaction shared with emailed to The Trent on Sunday, the APC said the main opposition’s comment is an attempt to ridicule the efforts of the Buhari-led administration to tackle the pandemic.
“This is yet another infantile and desperate attempt by the opposition party to play petty politics with a serious matter of national and international importance.
“Shockingly, while all well-meaning organizations, home and abroad, and individuals are putting in positive shifts to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has rather chosen to dance on the graves of the unfortunate Nigerians that have been killed by the disease.
“PDP has this rare opportunity to stand up to be counted by making positive contributions to end the scourge, but this opposition party thinks this is the time to politicize coronavirus cases and deaths, particularly in Kano State,” the party spokesperson, Lanre Issa-Onilu, said in the statement.
The APC recalled the failure of the main opposition party “to caution one of its governors who held a political rally in the wake of the pandemic.”
“It is not surprising that the Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde, who was making a joke of the pandemic got no cautionary words from PDP. We may never know the damage caused by the ill-advised rally held by PDP in Oyo State. But it suits the opposition party to attack the Kano State governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, to score cheap political points,” the ruling party stated.
The APC challenged the PDP to emulate the Nigerian Governors Forum, NGF, “who has kept politics aside and joined the President Buhari government jointly, proactively and frontally combating the pandemic which is currently a threat to our very existence.”
As of 11:55 p.m. of April 26, there were 1182 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported in Nigeria.
Of these, 222 infected people have recovered and have been discharged while the death toll rose to 35 from 32 reported on Friday.
