With the latest invasion of the
Abuja residence of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai by armed SSS officials with arrest
warrant, one wonder if there is still anything called Freedom of Speech inNigeria constitution. Earlier, El-Rufai was detained in a hotel at Awka during
Anambra State Governorship election and his freedom of movement infringed upon
from 15-16th November 2013 without any cause or formal charge. During
the period as reported by Premium Times, he was not only restricted to the
hotel, he was denied access to his congregational prayer as a devout Muslim,
and kept incommunicado without access to anyone and or the press.
Deputy Secretary of the All
Progressives Congress, APC, Nasir El-Rufai was quoted at a conference in Abuja
last Wednesday that there might be violence if the 2015 general elections were
not credible. The statement credited to him geared SSS to swift into action to
invite and or arrest him to explain in detail what he meant on the ground that
the statement is inciting. One wonder why the SSS had suddenly found its
agility, after feigning deafness when people like Edwin Clark, Asari Dokubo and
Chukwuemeka Ezeife issued a direct threat to Nigeria’s continued existence over
President Goodluck Jonathan’s second term ambition.
For me, El-Rufai statement is a
public knowledge because it can’t be business as usual if 2015 election is
rigged by any party and is in no way inciting nor require further explanation
unless SSS wants to tell us that there are plans to short change Nigerians
again.
However, Federal Government and
its arms should concern themselves with redeeming their image from allegations
of corruption, developmental issues, and perceived deafness to issues bothering
on corruption and romance with government officials indicted with corruption
allegation.
The problem is that government
agencies have turned deaf ear to cardinal issues critical to Nigeria
development and have continued to chase shadow. After months of indicting
current Aviation Minister of corruption by House of Representative, Federal Government
is yet to disassociate itself from the minister nor any anti-corruption arm of
government willing to take the case to court; maybe it has been swept under the
carpet as usual with such cases.
Thanks to an anti-corruption
group, ‘Say No Campaign’ that gave EFCC 14-day ultimatum on Friday to
investigate Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, based on the House of the
Representatives report on the ministry’s purchase of two armoured BMW cars for
N255 million or face court prosecution.
