PDP, others slam N100m suit on IGP, APC over harassment

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) alongside 21 persons in Akwa Ibom State have dragged the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to court demanding N100 million damages, for allegedly plotting to arbitrarily arrest and put away their members on trumped up charges until after the election.

Joined in the suit no HU/FRU18/2019 which the Akwa Ibom State PDP chairman, Obong Paul Ekpo, is also an applicant are the state Commissioner of Police as well as the rival All Progressives Party (APC).

The applicants are seeking as reliefs in the suit filed in the Akwa Ibom State High Court, Uyo, a declaration that they and all members of PDP in the state are entitled to enjoy the right to peaceful assembly and association guaranteed under Section 40 of the 199 Constitution as well as Articles 11 and 13, respectively of the African Charter of Human Right and Peoples Rights.

They are also asking the court to declare that the practice of arresting and detaining them by the police on the basis of phantom allegations by the APC, amounts to a breach of the 1999 constitution as well as the African charter of human and people’s Right Ratification and Enforcement Act.

Also in their series of reliefs is a court declaration that they and all members of the PDP are entitled to the rights of freedom of movement, freedom from discrimination and freedom of expression as guaranteed by the 1999 constitution, but which their select arrest and detention run fowl of the said constitution.

Explaining the grounds for seeking the reliefs, the PDP and others said APC was using the police ‘by way of phantom allegations to instigate the illegal arrest, detention, torture and frame-up of members of the PDP herein with the sinister intention of keeping them out of circulation during the electioneering period to secure for themselves undue advantage at the forthcoming general election.

The applicants said they “have received credible intelligence that during the build-up to the general election, buses branded as PDP, vehicles bearing the state government number plates, would be loaded with arms and occupied by some criminals, heading for the APC rally.

“On approaching, the bus and their occupants would be arrested and the contents of the buses displayed for all to see a major security breakthrough. Additionally, the criminals would mention some PDP top shots as their financiers, necessitating their arrest and subsequent prosecution under the Anti-terrorism Act.

“This plot which is hatched and sponsored by the opposition, APC, is aimed at arresting and incarcerating our key members and keeping them away from circulation throughout the elections.

“In the past few weeks, the leadership of the PDP has been inundaunted by calls from different parts of the state where its supporters have been wantonly arrested and incarcerated without any lawful justification.

“In Essien Udim, many of our members have been arrested and detained for over two weeks without being charged to court,” the PDP said.

The applicants therefore asked for a perpetual injunction restraining the respondents, either acting alone or in concert with one another from violating the enjoyment of their fundamental human right in the manner so stated.

They are also seeking an order from the respondent to jointly and severally to pay the sum of N100 million being punitive damages for breach of their fundamental rights

Mbaka, PDP, others knock Buhari on economy, graft

He predicted the emergence, three years ago, of President Muhammadu Buhari. He fired stinging criticisms against his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan. He even visited Aso Rock to receive a seeming post-inauguration ‘thank you’.
Today, charismatic Catholic priest, Rev. Fr Ejike Camilus Mbaka, has a different tune for the incumbent.

“Mr. President wake up. Sit up. God said you are toying with the privilege given to you. There is no time. Nigerians are dying in your hand. People are not happy with your system. Change or you will be changed,” said Mbaka at his popular Adoration Ground, in Enugu yesterday.

Delivering the warning, as part of his New Year message to Nigerians, the cleric disclosed: “God said that Buhari is in trouble. Buhari is hypnotised. Buhari is in a horrible bondage. Buhari’s mantra has been canibalised. Unless President Buhari quickly and strategically positions the right people and changes the former ones he inaugurated, the wind of change will blow him away shamefully.

“The wind will be too strong that Mr. President and the cabal will be blown out of office shamefully. The wind will be irresistible, for it will come like a hurricane. His office, if he is not careful, another will take.”

Presidency sources reached by The Guardian declined to comment.

In one of his takes against the Goodluck Jonathan administration in 2014, Mbaka had said: “There emerged a Goodluck. All of us were happy. The Goodluck met Yar’adua and Yar’adua died. Before you know it, the Goodluck met our oil and the oil had a bad luck and poured away. Before we knew it, the Goodluck met our naira and our naira had a bad luck. Where are we going? What is the fate of this country? Shall we continue like this? We need change!”

Mbaka said if Buhari doesn’t want to move the country forward, “God will plan a strategy” for doing so. He alleged the president’s “pattern of battling corruption is not just archaic, barbaric, but is also a witch-hunt, and terribly selective.”

He added: “The Nigerian economy is in a shambles and Nigerians are in sorrow. The country is not just passing through an economic depression; it is also a time of economic repression and compression.

“The cabals have messed up the president and confused him. So, Mr. President, you are to be blamed, not your cabals. You have your brooms, but the cabals have their bags. Either you sweep them away or they throw you into the bag. The situation in Nigeria needs speed but you are too dull.”

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) also criticised the president, saying his New Year speech failed to address serious economic and security issues confronting the nation.

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement yesterday said: “Instead of offering solutions or providing the indices for development, the presidency deployed over 2,000 words passing the buck, begging the question, making empty claims, and attempting to appropriate achievements of the PDP administration. What could be more depressing than the fact that the president, who is also the minister of petroleum resources, did not give a clear-cut solution to the acute fuel crisis bedeviling his nation today?”

He said: “The president’s speech neither addressed how to raise the fallen value of the naira nor how to rescue the labour market from the 8 million job losses and acute unemployment being suffered by Nigerians under the APC. The address completely failed to respond to issues of corruption under the APC regime, including allegations of budget padding, secret oil subsidy deals, illegal lifting of crude worth trillions of naira, pillaging of Nigeria’s foreign reserve, diversion of billions of naira for insurgency related matters, all by APC interests.”

The Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMLF) also faulted part of the presidents speech on restructuring of the nation.

The forum in a statement noted: “We must devolve more powers and authorities to the federating units to have effective state administrations. The federal police have shown they lack the capacity to deal with crimes in a multi-ethnic society like ours. The imperative of state police has never been more urgent than now.

“Restructuring means nothing else but the above. It is a call for return to a Nigeria that worked under federalism as against the failing state we are becoming under a unitary structure.”

The Advocacy for Integrity and Economic Development (AIED) in a statement also described the president’s decision on restructuring as retrogressive, saying: “We read with shock the New Year’s address where he made an open disdain for the resounding clamour for proper restructuring of this country. It is important we draw the attention of the president to his promise on restructuring and devolution while seeking power in 2015.

“It was on the strength of this promise, alongside numerous others, that Nigerians voted for President Buhari. It is therefore absurd that he can turn around and betray this solemn oath.”

PDP, APC clash over President’s health status

Nigeria’s main opposition party Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to tell Nigerians the true state of his health.

Heath status of President Buhari unknown

PDP made this call following President Buhari’s extension of his medical leave indefinitely and his inability to return to Nigeria from the UK.

The PDP said it was wrong for the President to also send letter to the National Assembly, extending his leave, without telling Nigerians when he would resume.

PDP’s spokesperson Dayo Adeyeye who spoke with Punch newspaper said it was wrong for the President and his handlers to be trivializing the health of the President.

“The President should know he is not a private citizen.

“He should know that Nigerians are the ones paying his health bills and therefore, he should tell them the true state of his health.

“He should not treat Nigerians with levity and he should also know what is obtainable in civilised countries. Nigeria is not a jungle.

“Imagine the President talking about a leave extension but not saying when he would resume?”

“Medical tests have dates of collection of results. It can’t be open-ended without dates,” he said.

Reacting to PDP’s call, the national publicity secretary of the APC, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, questioned the PDP stating that “Does the PDP know more than what we have been told? What we know is what we have been told.”

“This is the President of the country. The elections are over; he is our President, he is the President of Nigeria not that of the APC or the PDP. If the President has told us that he needs to stay back to do some other medical things, it behoves us, as responsible citizens, to pray for him and stop sensing an opportunity to retaliate.

“Does the PDP know more than what we have been told? What we know is what we have been told.

“We believe that the President has demonstrated an acute sense of responsibility. We are all living witnesses to our recent history where a President travelled and did not even communicate to the National Assembly the appropriate document to make the then Vice-President act in his stead.

“But this is a President that, on every occasion that he has to travel, he not only communicate to the National Assembly, but creates the enabling environment and the space for the Vice-President to act as President in his absence.

“I don’t know why people will start going green in the eyes as if we are actually hoping that tragedy befalls this country.

“The PDP should not behave in a way that will make Nigerians begin to think that it is actually spreading the rumour that the President is dead.”