Nigeria being painted red with blood – Dogara

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara yesterday lamented the killings in various parts of the country, saying Nigeria is now being painted red with blood. He spoke on a day that Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, took a swipe at the government over the precarious security situation in the country.


According to him, the failure of government to protect the lives and property of Nigerians is a tragedy and an indictment on both the executive and the legislature.

This is even as Plateau State Governor, Mr. Simon Lalong, disclosed, yesterday, that over 14,000 persons had been killed in Plateau and Benue states in the last few years by suspected herdsmen.

Yesterday, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, lamented the fact that the country was now being painted red with blood, following the killing of scores of people, including women and children, in Benue and Taraba states in particular and other parts of the country.

In his address to lawmakers who resumed from recess, yesterday, Dogara frowned on the violence in Benue, Taraba, Kaduna, Rivers, Zamfara, and Adamawa states.

He said: “Indeed, at no time in the recent past has the nation’s peace and unity been so vigorously and persistently challenged. This, however, is the real test for true leadership.

“Our dear country is now being painted red with the blood of the innocents on account of unremitting bedlam callously promoted by cold-hearted merchants of death.

“At these moments of intense outpouring of grief across the nation, it is important that we shun buck passing and accept responsibility for these wanton killings without which we will never find a solution to this evil.”

Reacting to the ongoing fuel scarcity, Dogara said the green chamber felt betrayed by the executive, stressing that it was unfortunate that even with the cooperation the lawmakers gave to the executive in a bid to resolve the fuel crisis, the situation still persisted.

“We expected that with the legislative cooperation given to the executive arm, to effect an increase in the fuel price from N87 per litre to N145, and based on their assurances, incidents of fuel scarcity would be a thing of the past. We were also assured that fuel subsidy had come to an end.”