A civil rights advocacy group – Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has advised President Muhammadu Buhari to be wary of the likes of his Information and Culture Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, over his position and utterances which they alleged were anti statesmanship and patriotism.
The group in a statement by its Executive Director, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko also carpeted the Information Minister for his alleged “irrational, undemocratic and unconstitutional outburst following the contentious verdict of the presidential election petition tribunal in Abuja which awarded legal victory to President Muhammadu Buhari.”
HURIWA stated that it was odd and totally irrational that a serving minister and a lawyer could be quoted as demanding public apology and/or prosecution of a petitioner in a highly contentious electoral matter which for the time being has also been contentiously and controversially resolved in favour of the president who is a necessary respondent in the electoral litigation.
“Only a completely uneducated road-side political fanatic who is delusional and cut off from the reality and dynamics of constitutional democracy can be heard demanding that someone like the former vice president Atiku Abubakar who chose the most civilised and constitutional route to seek for legal redress over his perceived ‘shortchanging’ by Independent National Electoral Commission, should apologise for choosing to go to court of law.
“We urge President Buhari to steer clear of Lai Mohammed who is simply a crass political opportunist who is totally unmindful of the need for President Buhari in the last stage of his prolonged political career to focus on bequeathing enduring legacies of statesmanship and patriotism. Lai Mohammed by this outlandish outburst has shown himself as a political who stokes up crises for selfish aggrandisement.
“What that empty rhetoric of Lai Mohammed shows is a man with a warped idea of what is the best step to adopt to seek for justice. Would Lai Mohammed had preferred that Atiku Abubakar never filed a suit but instigate his supporters to revolt? Was Atiku not also called a foreigner by the lawyers to the president in this same Tribunal? So what should Atiku do to President his kinsman who for political exigency chose to deny his kinsman Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and sought to deprive him of his citizenship by branding him a foreigner?.
HURIWA dismissed these statements by Lai Mohammed as the ranting of someone who does not wish President Muhammadu Buhari well but it’s remarkably shows that Lai Mohammed is disloyal to the President through his show of disdainful sycophancy.