OPC Chides Dambazau Over Comparison With Boko Haram

YAF Urges Peaceful Coexistence In Southwest

THE Oodua People’s Congress ( OPC), yesterday, chided former Chief of Army Staff and immediate past Minister of Interior, Lt. Gen. Abdurahman Dambazau for comparing the Yoruba rights group with Boko Haram, saying the former ( COAS) is suffering from acute dementia and gradually losing touch with realities of the moment.

It would be recalled that Dambazau said the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra ( IPOB) and OPC shared similarities with the insurgent Boko Haram. He added that both OPC and IPOB were making attempts to plunge the nation into ethnic war. But reacting to the statement, the Publicity Secretary of OPC, Barrister Yinka Oguntimehin, condemned the incoherent comparison, pointing out that such statements were capable of heating up the polity and disrupting national peace. Oguntimehin also described Dambazau as a northern irredentist and extremist, popularly noted for his unguarded statements and utterances.

He said: “… Dambazau’s statement that OPC and IPOB are very much the same as the dreaded Boko Haram was made in bad faith, and such statements have raised some fundamental questions about his intentions, interests and morality as a former COAS and minister of Interior that has allegedly been supporting bandits by offering them both financial and technical support.

“Such high profile ex- military officer cannot be trusted in the fight against insurgency because he had on several occasions pleaded on their behalf.

“In 2014, before the general election, Dambazau and four other top Northern leaders had their hands in the recruitment of bandits into the country. And when he eventually became the minister of Interior under President Muhammadu Buhari, he requested and pleaded that the Federal Government should raise over N800b to settle the bandits; a request that was opposed by Nigerians”.