Skip to main content

Nigeria sliding into dictatorship under Buhari – PDP govs


Image result for mimiko pictures

Governors elected under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party on Tuesday said Nigeria was sliding into dictatorship under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The governors, under the aegis of the PDP Governors’ Forum, made this known after rising from a two-hour meeting of the forum held in the inner chamber of the Bayelsa State Governor’s Office in Yenagoa.

The PDP governors led by their chairman and Governor of Ondo State, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, condemned the alleged invasion of the Akwa Ibom State Government House by some operatives of the Department of State Services.

Mimiko, who read the communique of the forum to journalists, said the invasion was against the spirit, ethos, values and fundamental tenets of democratic norms and tradition, more so with the existence of a duly elected and sworn-in governor of the state.

He said, “We insist that the trend must stop henceforth. No democracy survives without a viable opposition in any part of the world and we must also remember to remind the APC that they are the real beneficiaries of the liberal democratic ethos of the PDP.

“We once more advise the DSS to preoccupy itself with the task of ensuring internal security and desist from daily harassing and intimidating members of the opposition.

“We implore the international community, the civil society organisations and human rights activists to caution the All Progressives Party-led Federal Government and to insist that it respects the well-entrenched democratic tradition.

“We all have a duty to prevent what looks to us like a steady slide of this country into dictatorship.”

Mimiko said the PDP governors were worried, alarmed and shocked by such a desecration, noting that it was an assault on democracy.

He said situation like what happened in Akwa Ibom State could spell doom for the country’s democracy.

The governor noted that the action was one of the continuous attempts by the APC-controlled government to stifle the opposition.

Of the 13 PDP governors in the country, two governors and four deputy governors were present at the meeting.

The governors were Mimiko and the host, Seriake Dickson, while the deputies that represented their governors were those of Delta, Kingsley Otuaro; Asia, Chris Akomas; Ebonyi, Kelechi Igwe;and Kogi, Yomi Awoniyi.

Governors of Enugu, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Cross River, Benue, Ekiti and Taraba states did not attend the meeting. They also did not send representatives.

Repeated calls to the mobile telephone number of the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, were neither picked nor replied. A response to a text message sent to him was still being awaited as of the time of filing this report.


Copyright PUNCH.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DEFECTIONS: Why Saraki, Dogara Others Must Heed Sen. Ibrahim's Call by Comrade Nwokoma Ndubuisi M.

The gale of defections in the National Assembly last week was followed by an advice from no one else than Sen. Abu Ibrahim that the Senate President Dr. Bukola Saraki as well as the Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara and others in the fold of the All Progressives Congress APC that are still masquerading in the party should resign their membership of the party. This call which also implies that they resign their positions as leaders of the various arms of the National Assembly is yet to be complied with by those concerned as at the time of writing this piece Whatever their reasons for still staying put in the party may be, the fact of the matter is that their continued stay in the party has become a sore which must be extricated from the body.  As I watched through the proceedings of the defections on national television, I wept for the country for producing such leaders that lack morality despite all the party has given them politically which they ordin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rivers Governmnet, PDP Disagree Over $280 million Looan

The Rivers State Government and the Peoples Democratic Party in the state are currently at loggerheads over the request by the state Governor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, for a $280m loan for water and sanitation projects. While the state PDP said that the latest request for loan by the state government was unnecessary due to the resources accruing to the state through the federal allocation and internally generated revenue, the government said it was not true that the funds were to be used for 2015 elections. The state House of Assembly had on Monday endorsed Amaechi’s request for loan for water supply and sanitation projects. But the state PDP, in a statement, signed by the Special Adviser to its Chairman, Mr. Jerry Needam, said the request for loan was aimed at punishing the governor’s successor in 2015. The party called on members of the House of Assembly, the Federal Ministry of Finance, the African Development Bank and the World Bank not to honour the loan re...
Post a Comment
Read more

2019: Northern youths kick as Northwest APC lawmakers endorse Buhari

The leadership of the Arewa Youth Forum on Monday said President Muhammadu Buhari does not deserve any endorsement for the 2019 presidency. Reacting to a purported endorsement by some serving All Progressives Congress’s lawmakers from the Northwest in Kaduna, the AYF’s National President, Alhaji Gambo Gujungu, said Buhari was not fit to return as president in 2019. The AYF argued that with the killing spree all over the country, especially in the North, Buhari should serve his mandatory four years term and quit the stage for another Northerner. Gujungu noted that one sour point about President Buhari’s 2019 ambition was his claim that the killings across the country were being carried out by “desperate politicians”, yet he had not arrested even a single suspect. The AYF president, therefore, said Nigerians should blame the president for the attacks on innocent citizens. The AYF boss who spoke to our correspondent on phone on Monday, said the President’s cl...
Post a Comment
Read more