…insists Buhari’s govt despotic
The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus has insisted that the Muhammadu Buhari administration is despotic.
Secondus had written a petition to the United Nations, detailing what he described as despotic tendencies of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its attendant human rights violation by the administration.
But in a reaction to the petition, the Presidency had described the petition as “comical”, saying the PDP chairman was crying wolf where there was none.
In a statement on Tuesday by his media aide, Mr. Ike Abonyi, the party chair insisted that the desire of the APC administration is to drag Nigeria back to the dark period.
Secondus cited instances of high-handedness in which Nigerians, including foreigners were indiscriminately sent to prison without going through the due process of the law.
The party chair wondered why the Presidency is “stressed up” on an innocuous letter to the United Nations that merely stated the obvious happenings in the country regarding democratic developments.
The statement said, “Instead of debunking the issues raised in the letter with empirical facts, they now resort to blackmail and intimidation of arresting and docking PDP members.
“Let the Presidency tell the world what they have done in the past three years to deepen our democracy. Is it the inconclusive elections rampant under their watch; is it the evasion of judges homes at midnight with deadly weapons or the evasion of parliament and abduction of the mace?
“PDP members are not afraid of facing the law because they believe in the rule of law, what they are resisting and want the international community to note is the gradual return of 1984 draconian system in 2018.
“Anybody who watched a serving senator being taken to court in an ambulance in a distance of over 200 kilometres in frame up charges, would know that our democracy is in danger.
“Can democracy flourish in an atmosphere where the Senate of a country is being vandalized and the mace, being a symbol of authority, removed by hired hoodlums as security operatives watched?
“Is democracy not threatened in a situation where serving legislators are being framed up and humiliated publicly by agents of the state just for having dissenting voice on issues?”.
Also speaking in the matter, spokesman of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan said the petition embodied the pains, anguish, mood, wishes and voice of the generality of Nigerians across board.
According to him, the worst hid were the victims of extra-judicial killings, state instigated violence, arrests and detentions, economic hardship occasioned by large scale corruption and government incompetence.
Ologbondiyan said, “You are already aware of the international outcry against the impunity and high-handedness for which various reputable international agencies, including the Amnesty International (AI), Transparency International and the US Department of State had issued reports exposing these atrocities, while exhaustively indicting the Buhari administration.
“The world was however shocked when the Buhari Presidency, in a brash show of power and siege mentality, arrogantly dismissed the issues raised by the PDP and the international agencies as ‘comical’ and even went ahead to issue new threats to opposition and dissenting voices in our country.
“This gruesome response by the Buhari Presidency on critical issues bordering on direct violation of constitutionally guaranteed welfare, personal liberty and lives of citizens is completely reprehensible and further demonstrates the level of official arrogance, high-handedness, dictatorial proclivities and spurn with which the Buhari Presidency and the APC hold our citizens and the international community.
“This obstinate position of the Presidency at a time it should be showing remorse, retracing its steps, apologising and making effort to end the atrocities, clearly shows that what obtains in our country now is a deliberate enthronement of official overbearingness and intolerance to dissent, as if Nigerians are no longer citizens but subjects of a conquest.
“We invite all Nigerians and the international community to note that since the filing of our petition to the UN for which Nigerians across board have reposed hope, there have been escalation of hostilities, direct threats, harassment and intensified persecution of key opposition members, including our National Chairman.
“PDP notes that Nigeria under President Buhari is awfully degenerating into a despotic state where citizens are no longer safe as long as they hold opinion contrary to those in power, in spite of their constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression.
“We urge the world not to fold its hands and watch as official impunity and imminent despotism override civil liberty and rule of law in Africa’s largest democracy.
“You are already aware that sadly, our dear nation is now rated as number 13 in the Wikipedia list of world’s fragile states. Nigeria is currently in despair and we all must stand up and take a stand on the side of democracy before it becomes too late”.