By OLASUNKANMI AKONI

Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, and Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, weekend urged President Goodluck Jonathan, to stick to dialogue in dealing with the Boko Haram crisis rather than imposing a state of emergency on some of the northern states, considered worst hit by activities of insurgents.

ACN’s National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, while reacting to reported plan to impose state of emergency on some states in the North, said if the imposition of emergency rule on the affected states was the only viable option left for President Jonathan to tackle the crisis, then he should step down.

The party said, “imposing state of emergency on the states that have been mentioned, like Borno, Yobe and Nasarawa states will amount to shifting responsibility and unduly victimizing the governors of those states, who have done perhaps more than the President, in dealing with the crisis, though they are not in charge of any security apparatus”.

On its part, CPC in a statement by National Publicity Secretary, Rotimi Fashakin, while opposing the plan, said “as a party, we have noticed a dangerous trend that the states mainly embroiled in these spates of insecurity are mainly non-PDP states which further fuels the notion that these insurgencies are purposely orchestrated to create the ambience for the declaration of emergency rule in the states.”