Opposition summit: PDP defends Makinde, accuses APC of twisting violence warning

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has strongly refuted claims that Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde's reference to the "Operation Wetie" crisis at a recent opposition summit constituted a call to violence. The party, through its National Publicity Secretary Ini Ememobong, framed the governor's remarks as a historical caution aimed at the Federal Government and the All Progressives Congress (APC), warning of the dire consequences of their actions and inactions.

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The use of history in the way and manner done by Governor Makinde in the said speech served as a caution and advisory to the Federal Government, the APC, and other national institutions, of the unmitigated crisis that their actions and inactions can result in. Only a guilty aggressor can interpret it to mean a threat or call to violence. It is common knowledge that those who do not learn from history are doomed by it.

The PDP's statement directly accused the APC and the Federal Government of deliberately twisting Makinde's words, asserting that only a "guilty aggressor" would interpret the historical allusion as a threat. The party emphasized that Makinde's intent was to highlight how political greed and public frustration, if unchecked, could lead to widespread unrest, drawing parallels between the current political climate and the events that led to the "wetie" incident.

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The current slide into elected totalitarianism has been entirely engineered by the APC and the Federal Government. They cannot decry the effect while remaining willfully blind to the cause and to their own culpability in it.

Furthermore, the PDP challenged the APC's moral standing to criticize Makinde, recalling the ruling party's own past rhetoric when in opposition. The PDP argued that the APC's current actions, which they described as a slide into "elected totalitarianism," are the true cause of political tension. The party vowed to continue employing lawful strategies to resist any attempts to establish a one-party system, placing the responsibility for any future election-related violence squarely on the Federal Government, the APC, and national institutions tasked with defending democracy.

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when the APC was in opposition, they did not merely threaten violence, they openly promised to make the country ungovernable, with the infamous baboon and blood narrative.