2015: APC accuses FG of using security agencies against opposition
(Nigeria) The All Progressives Congress, APC, has accused
the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, led Federal Government to use the security
agencies, especially the Department of State Service, DSS and the Police, to
harass and intimidate the opposition with a view to decapitating it ahead of
the 2015 elections.
In a statement in Abuja on Wednesday by its National
Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the torrent of threats
being issued recently by the Minister of Police Affairs and the DSS, over
alleged inflammatory statements by opposition leaders, is nothing but a
thinly-veiled attempt at cowing the opposition and destabilizing its ranks.
It said the strategy includes the 'invitation' of key
opposition figures for questioning by the DSS, starting with the APC National
Publicity Secretary, to be followed by arrests and detention of such figures.
APC said the impending clampdown is the PDP-led Federal
Government's answer to the soaring profile of the opposition ahead of the
polls, and called on local and international observers of the elections to keep
a close eye on the unsavoury developments, which constitute a clear and present
danger to the success of the elections.
''The Minister of Police Affairs said publicly that he has
already directed the Inspector-General of Police as well as the DSS to arrest
anyone who makes inflammatory statements ahead of the 2015 elections, and then
went ahead to castigate the APC, thus exposing the real reason for his
directive.
''The Minister had barely issued his orders when the DSS,
which has unabashedly become a megaphone of the ruling PDP, fired its own
warning, directed pointedly at ''a serving governor calling on men of the armed
forces to rise up in protest against constituted authority,” when nothing of
such happened.
''If the Minister and indeed the security agencies were
carrying out their duties as an official/agents of state rather than partisans,
they would have realized that no one is more guilty of making inflammatory and
even treasonable statements than the supporters of the President and members of
the PDP.
''Yet, not once has the Minister, and the security agencies
under his control, called these people to order. There is no better indication
of the mindset of these threats-issuing Minister and the security agencies
under his control than their glaring double-standard and vexatious
partisanship. This is not how to run the affairs of state,'' the party said.
It recalled that a series of inflammatory, insulting and
downright treasonable comments by supporters of President Goodluck Jonathan and
officials of the PDP all went without as much as a whimper from those who are
now howling at the opposition for statements that are neither inflammatory nor
treasonable.
''A a die-hard supporter of President Goodluck Jonathan once
threatened that there will be blood on the streets if the President is not
re-elected, without anyone calling him to order. He recently said the President
has already won the yet-to-be conducted Feb. 14 presidential election,
suggesting that the election will be a mere formality. No one called him to
order.
''Another supporter of the President, Chief Edwin Clark,
said if the opposition had its way, it would poison President Jonathan just to
take power. The Minister of Police Affairs and the security agencies under his
control snored the comment away.
''PDP National Secretary Wale Oladipo called the
presidential candidate of the APC, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, a 'semi-literate
jackboot', PDP National Publicity Secretary Olisa Metuh heaped abuses on APC
leaders in an ill-tempered statement arising from a disoriented PDP in the
aftermath of the hugely-successful APC national convention while a spokesman
for the President called Gen. Buhari names for being a 'poor' man, yet this
Minister and his agencies did not see anything inflammatory in all these
statements, all because they came from members and supporters of the ruling
party.
''We know that Nigerians as well as the international
community are watching closely and documenting these developments. It is
important to do so if they are to make informed comments on the outcome of the
forthcoming polls.
''On our part, we will continue to document the developments
while maintaining a responsible and purposeful public discourse, highlighted by
issues and devoid of the kind of inflammatory and treasonable comments that PDP
and Presidency officials have been spewing out,'' APC said.
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