Fides Media Living the Faith
By Jude Atupulazi
The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, former Governor Peter Obi, has expressed shock over the terror attack that rocked Ondo State, which claimed an unspecified number of lives, describing it as a very sad day in the history of the nation. This is even as Labour Party’s senatorial candidate for Anambra Central, Senator Victor Umeh, has called on the federal government to protect the lives of all Nigerians.
Suspected terrorists had stormed St Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, the headquarters of Owo Local Government Area of Ondo State, leaving many worshippers dead and several others injured.
In a press release made available to the press, Obi lamented the continued descent of the country into insecurity and failure of the state. He bemoaned the mindless killing of innocent worshippers, saying it was heart breaking.
He condemned the rising tide of violence in almost every part of the country, warning that no nation ever progressed with the level of insecurity Nigeria currently experienced. He said that what was more painful was that the worshippers were killed without any sense of sacredness, right in their place of worship.
‘The heartless waste of precious lives in Ondo, and indeed, other parts of the country, where lives are lost in droves, reminds us how awfully we have retrogressed as a nation and the herculean task of nation building ahead of us in taking back our nation from insecurity and every form of failure holding us down,’ Obi lamented.
He prayed for the eternal rest of the dead victims and for the quick recovery of the injured. Obi condoled with the Governor of Ondo State, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu; Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Ondo, Most Reverend Jude Arogundade and the people of Ondo over the tragic incident, while praying God to comfort them.
‘These are very challenging times for us all as a people, but with hope, hard work and resilience, we shall overcome,’ Obi concluded.
For his part, the senatorial candidate of Labour Party for Anambra Central, Senator Victor Umeh, has called on the government of Nigeria to remember that security of the lives of the citizenry remained its top priority and regretted that Nigeria had become a vast killing field; even as he condemned the Ondo attack and described it as devilish and barbaric.
Umeh, whose defection to Labour Party was recently endorsed by Anambra Central People’s Forum, urged the federal government to go after the killers of the worshippers and have them prosecuted, warning that Nigerians had run out of patience with what he described as the apparent kid glove treatment of some people in the country.
‘Nigeria belongs to all of us. There should be no sacred cows. Whoever violates the laws of the land must be punished. This is why we need people who will be brave enough to address some of these issues in the appropriate quarters,’ Umeh said, while calling on Nigerians to be more security conscious.