(NIGERIA) The All Progressives Congress has raised the alarm over the plan by the Federal Government to use the security agencies, especially the DSS and the Police, to harass and intimidate the opposition with a view to decapitating it ahead of the 2015 elections.
In a statement issued 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.
”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.
-THE PUNCH-
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