ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan on Wednesday criticised the agitation by Pakistan Peoples Party workers outside the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) head office, calling the opposition party leadership ‘immature and childish’.

She was speaking at a ceremony, organised by the Media Workers Organisation, to distribute Rama­zan package among the needy media persons.

PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had earlier criticised Prime Minister Imran Khan and the government for using police force against PPP workers and leaders who he said had gathered outside the NAB office to express solidarity with their leadership.

Responding to the criticism, Dr Awan said: “We were beginning to think that political maturity has started to prevail in the country but there are [still] some immature politicians, actually juvenile politicians.”

She said some political parties were using their workers as ‘cannon fodder’ to hide their misdeeds. “That party instead of representing the federation has been limited to a few districts of Sindh only and resorted to creating such law and order situation to survive through the media,” she said, adding that they had lost their credibility among the masses.

She said: “The only way forward [for the opposition party] was to give up corruption and stay in politics of the people.”

When NAB called their leaders they were so fearful of the outcome that they could not move without the support of workers, she alleged.

The special assistant said it was not ethical to use workers, including women, as a shield to avoid questioning by the anti-graft watchdog. “We need to show some political maturity,” she remarked.

“The political maturity means to understand the purpose of the supreme sacrifice rendered by the mother [Benazir Bhutto]. That purpose was to clear the country of terrorism and to ensure writ of the state,” Dr Awan said, referring to the recent incident in North Waziristan district.

She said the government media policy was incomplete as long as there was protection to the employers and the workers. But currently the government was only protecting the employers through advertisements policy, she added. “Media workers are the nucleus of the whole industry and the industry cannot progress without strengthening the nucleus,” she said. “We are trying to work out a mechanism to ensure that the amount released by the government benefits the workers too.”

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2019