The spokesperson of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, Femi Fani-Kayode and Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State on Sunday evening engaged themselves in a war of words over issues relating to insecurity in the North-eastern part of Nigeria.
Fani-Kayode had replied an earlier statement by the All Progressives Congress (APC) slamming President Goodluck Jonathan for making an “unpresidential statement” by saying that Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Boko Haram sect would have released a video if he had killed the girls abducted from Chibok almost a year ago.
In his reaction to the APC statement, Fani-Kayode accused the presidential candidate of the APC, General Muhammadu Buhari, the Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima and the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Lai Mohammed, of being aware of the whereabouts of the kidnapped girls.
He also asked Nigerians to hold the APC responsible if the girls are not found.
Fani-Kayode said: “Whilst the majority of Nigerians are overjoyed by the fact that the President has given us hope by saying that the girls are still alive. Lai Mohammed and the APC are not happy.
“The truth is that they do not want those girls to be found and neither do they care about their welfare or their safety.
“We say this because this was a man, and a party that complained and protested at the fact that Boko Haram was proscribed by the Federal Government last year.
“Lai Mohammed proclaimed that the proscription was unjust and unconstitutional. We have always believed that Buhari, Lai Mohammed, Governor Shettima and the APC know far more about the whereabouts of the Chibok girls and the activities of Boko Haram that they have cared to admit. Let it be clearly understood that if anything happens to those girls and if they are not produced at the soonest we will hold Lai Mohammed, Buhari and the APC responsible.”
Reacting to Fani-Kayode’s outburst minutes later, Shettima, through his media aide, Malam Isa Gusa, called Fani-Kayode an adult who has the mentality of a baby.
“We all know that going into exchange with an infant is like having a dialogue with the blind, deaf and dumb; this is why it is thoughtless for any serious minded person to exchange words with Femi Fani Kayode not to talk of someone like Governor Kashim Shettima who has too many serious issues he is competently handling with patriotism as a result of which he was not only exonerated but also commended by a Presidential fact-finding committee on the missing Chibok schoolgirls that was set up by the same Presidency Kayode works for,” the media aide said.
He noted that Shettima is the one who secured admissions for some of the girls who escaped from the sect enrolling them into an international school and also granted them scholarships. He asked Nigerians not to be surprised when Fani-Kayode, who is never consistent, would reverse the statement against the governor and other APC chieftains later.
According to him, Fani-Kayode is known for saying ‘A’ in the morning, ‘K’ in the afternoon and ‘Z’ at night, “so we will wait for him to contradict himself and he will surely do so because that is him, he can’t avoid being who he is.”
