The All Progressives Congress (APC) has fired back at Amnesty International over its recent report stating that several Nigerians have been killed since President Bola Tinubu took over power on May 29.
DAILY POST reports that Amnesty International (AI), in a statement on Tuesday by its acting director, Isa Sanusi, called on the Nigerian government to take urgent steps to end widespread killings in Nigeria.
This was even as the organisation claimed that more than 120 people have been killed since President Bola Tinubu was inaugurated as president on May 29.
Reacting to the report, APC, in a statement on Wednesday, accused the organisation of playing a double standard in cases involving underdeveloped nations.
Bayo Onanuga, a chief spokesperson for the Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, posted the statement on his verified Twitter handle.
The statement reads: “Amnesty International is known for stoking internal conflict and citizen antagonism in developing nations through weaponisation and accentuation of local situations to achieve its sinister objectives while hypocritically looking the other way when similar incidents occur in developed nations, especially in the Western world.
“Many nations in the world, including the United States of America, are today bedevilled by insecurity. By the end of May 2023, almost 20,000 people have died cumulatively as a result of gun violence and other violent crimes in America.
“In the first 150 days of 2023, America has recorded 263 mass shootings, with hundreds of deaths, yet Amnesty International has not been on the mountaintop to accuse US government of dereliction of duty.
“That mass shootings and gun violence have become epidemics in US does not make the American government a failure in protecting its people or make mass shootings a ‘norm’ in the country. Every government is daily devising means and ways to tackle rapidly changing security problems.
“Amnesty International and its affiliates are advised to give the young government some time to work things out, in consonance with its pledge to our people, rather than rushing out with its jaded diatribe against the Nigerian government and its security authorities.
” President Bola Tinubu and his team are settling down to solving many of our national challenges across various sectors. Amnesty International should allow this government to do its work without their usual condescending hypocrisy.”