The Peoples Democratic Party has sparked a fresh controversy online over its comment on the missing Malaysian plane.
As the search for Malaysia Airlines
flight MH370 which left Kuala Lumpur on March 8 en route Beijing, China,
continues, the ruling party said it was imagining a situation where the
incident had happened in Nigeria.
The party said it was particularly
seeking to know what would have become of President Goodluck Jonathan if
the missing plane were to have been a Nigerian airliner.
Urging Nigerians to drop their comments
on its official Facebook page, the party asked, “What do you think would
have happened to GEJ if the Malaysian flight MH 370 that disappeared 14
days ago were to be Nigeria’s?”
However, some Nigerians have criticised
the PDP for nursing such a thought at a time when international efforts
for the whereabouts of the jet have been unsuccessful so far.
Many of them said they believed that the
PDP made the statement with a view to whipping up public sentiments that
many Nigerians, especially the opposition, would have “unfairly”
criticised the President if it were an indigenous airline.
“Is Jonathan a pilot or does he operate an airline?” a curious visitor to the PDP Facebook page, Oludare Adebiyi, asked.
Again, one Mu’azu Sa’adu-Wara dared the
PDP-led government to handle the affairs of the aviation industry with
levity and incur the wrath of Nigerians. “Try to lose a plane and hear
what Nigerians will say,” he added.
Those who dropped angry comments on the
party’s Facebook page argued that its enquiry amounted to an insult on
the memory of the 239 passengers and crew members aboard the plane, as
well as insensitive to the feelings of distraught relations.
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While Adetona Bashorun-Adeoti described
the Facebook post as “completely nonsense question,” another respondent,
Isa Ahmed, reacted angrily, saying, “This is a useless question from a
useless party.”
Muhammad Bello-Tukur, who works with the
Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, Kaduna State, said he
wondered if the continued wanton destruction of lives in the north
eastern part of the country was not enough challenge for the PDP-led
government to worry about before subtly wishing that a plane disaster
befall the nation.
“Is that your deadly hope as a party that
our people should be dying? What has fallen upon this useless party
called PDP?” Bello-Tukur queried.
Ibrahim Suleiman-Dawud, who also decried
the PDP statement, said one would have expected the party to take a more
responsive approach to its social media engagement.
Suleiman-Dawud, a student, argued that
the statement is too demeaning of a ruling party of PDP’s stature which
proclaims itself as the largest political party in Africa.
“This stupidity of yours needs to be
over. What type of question is this? Something happened outside Nigeria
and you hope it to be in Nigeria. Shame on you, People Destroying
Party,” he wrote.
Corroborating Suleiman-Dawud’s position,
another Facebook fan of the party, Rex Igo, a logistics officer based in
Abuja, branded the feedback sought by the party as “absolute nonsense.”
“It is absolute nonsense to even imagine
it to happen in Nigeria. Can you, the leaders of this country, be
responsible for once?” he asked on the social network.
However, though many faulted the
perceived insensitivity of the PDP, others cautioned it against making
such sinister wishes for the country and the citizenry.
A respondent, Suleiman Sabo, advised the
PDP to dedicate its online activities to offering prayers for the good
of the nation. “Pray that good things befall (sic) your President and
your country. Why post this nonsense?” Sabo querried.
A student of the Niger Delta University,
Okpole Brown, while faulting the party, enthused that the question it
raised was inconsequential to the current realities bedeviling the
country. Brown said the party, with the statement, was taking the
citizenry for a ride.
He noted, “PDP is asking this question
because they know Nigeria can be taken for a ride. Only in Nigeria can
unemployment rate rise to 23.9 per cent and the President can still go
to sleep with his two eyes closed.
“Only in Nigeria will fuel scarcity
linger on for weeks and the President and the minister will tell the
citizens why fuel will remain scarce without fear.
“Only in Nigeria will a minister steal
public funds and still hold on tight to his or her position. PDP should
cover its face in shame. Fifteen years of uninterrupted rule yet no
improvement, life is unbearable, kerosene still out of reach of the
poor. A revolution is close!”
-Punch
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