Ghali Na’Abba: Northern Groups Accuse Buhari’s Govt of
Intolerant
The Coalition of Northern Groups is alarmed by reports that
former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Umar Na’abba,
has been invited by the Department of State Services over the
interview he granted Channels Television on Thursday regarding the
agenda of the National Consultative Front to bring about a new
Nigeria that works for all.
The CNG finds it worrisome that the current administration is
becoming more and more intolerant of the oppositions and criticism
and gradually dragging the country towards becoming a police
state.
We find this attempt to harass Na’Abbah, a senior citizen and
critical stakeholder in the nation’s democratic process, a brutal
encroachment on the universal citizens right to freedom of
expression which is a fundamental characteristic of any democratic
state.
By its continuous attempt to suppress the existence of the right
to freedom of expression which includes the freedom to hold
opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without
interference by the public authority, President Muhammadu Buhari’s
administration is exposing its failure in sportsmanship,
statesmanship and political craftsmanship.
It is ridiculous that those who run this government who happened
to have benefited the most from the previous administration’s
tolerant disposition should be the ones denying others the same
right they enjoyed
The CNG repudiates this unhealthy, undemocratic trend of
government’s exercise of power through security agencies to impose
restrictions on citizens’ mobility, or on their freedom to express
or communicate political or other views and hold it
unacceptable.
We insist that every Nigerian’s right to freedom of expression
which is not only a primary cornerstone of democracy, but also
prerequisite for the enjoyment of many of the other rights and
freedoms ensured in our constitution and international conventions
must be respected.
We therefore find it absolutely unacceptable for a people who in
no way bore the brunt of the struggle for the return to democracy
to be hellbent now on scuttling it.
SIGNED
Abdul-Azeez Suleiman,
CNG SPOKESPERSON