As President Muhammadu Buhari begins his official visit to the United States of America (USA) today, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has drawn the attention of the US President, Donald Trump to alleged constitutional and human rights violations in the country under his administration.
Speaking on the state of the nation at a press conference in Abuja, yesterday, PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, urged President Trump to stand up for democracy and take President Buhari to task on alleged constitutional and human rights violations in Nigeria.
Ologbondiyan said Buhari in the past three years as president has destroyed the nation’s democratic order and eroded the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the citizens.
He said the government has foisted a siege mentality on the people by turning the country into a police state.
His words: “Nigeria is facing a perilous time; our constitution has been technically suspended; we have now become a police state; governance has reverted to the nightmares of the 1984 era, when draconian leaders held sway and forcefully held our people under the grips of military Decree 2.
“Currently, there is a total collapse of respect for constitutionally guaranteed personal freedom; there is no regard for natural course of justice, life in Nigeria is gradually returning to the state of nature and there is fear everywhere.
“Today, Nigerians are being hounded, arrested and directly detained on ‘order from above’, without warrant; citizens are locked up in dehumanizing detention centres without access to medical care and legal assistance, just for holding political opinions that run contrary to the views of those in power at the centre. “There are preponderance instances of citizens’ detention in special police and military facilities for weeks, months and in some cases, many years without trial. Nigerians are daily falling victims of extreme torture, extra-judicial and arbitrary killings and mass burial by unrestrained agents of state security forces.”
The PDP spokesman said that the 2017/2018 Amnesty International (AI) 2017/2018 Human Rights report on Nigeria is the confirmation of the human right abuses by the All Progressives Congress (APC) led Federal Government.
“The recent US government’s report on human rights violation in Nigeria also confirmed cases of harassments, persecution of opposition, arrests, detention and extra-judicial killings under President Buhari’s administration.
“Indeed, the height of human rights abuse being witnessed in our country today is the worst in our national contemporary history.
“As we speak, government’s inaction and aloofness have led to escalation of killings in Benue, Taraba, Adamawa, Kogi, Kaduna, Borno, Yobe, Nasarawa, Edo, Zamfara, Ekiti, Enugu, by insurgents and marauders, who are having a field day as the presidency has abandoned governance for 2019 re-election bid.
“Painfully, our democratic institutions, particularly the legislature, judiciary and even the media are being decapitated by dictatorial forces who are encouraged by the agents of the state at the centre.
“Let the truth be told! Nigeria is bleeding under President Buhari and the world must come to the rescue,” he said.
Also yesterday, the PDP National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, accused President Buhari of leaving the country in tatters to travel to the US on image laundry.
Secondus, who stated this in a statement issued by his Special Assistant on Media, Ike Aboyi, warned that President Buhari’s alleged clampdown on politicians with opposing views is capable of truncating the nation’s democracy.
“Legislators are not safe, judges are living and working in fear; media are being harassed, security agencies have all become tools of oppression for government. Dictatorial signs are all over the place threatening our democracy. “Their intention is clear: to intimidate and frighten people from saying the truth. But they will never succeed because the huge sacrifice made to bring this democracy to this level by Nigerians is not for it to be destroyed cheaply,” he said.
“If governance in a democracy is associated with delivery of dividends and after three years you have nothing to show, no amount of aggressive pressure and bullying will save such government in the hands of the voters.
“Democracy provides for a day of reckoning when we leaders must return to the people to renew our mandate, that hour has come and only a government that has nothing to show that resorts to intimidation and harassment of those telling them the truth,” he said.
-Sun
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