Police invitation : Rights activist cautions IGP over Fani-Kayode, threatens mass action if…

Rights activist cautions IGP over invitation to Fani-Kayode

Femi Kani -Fayode

Imo State-born  human rights activist and renowned author, Comrade Paul Ikechukwu Njoku, has cautioned  the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Idris Ibrahim, over the police invitation to former Aviation Minister, Femi Kani-Fayode.

Njoku who described the invitation as a deliberate attempt to gay and intimidate the former Minister into submission following his criticisms of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The activist told the IGP to “refrain from incessant ill mannerism of deriving joy seeing dissent voices and opposition figures being intimidated and cowered by the officers and men of the Nigeria Police Force.”

He further said that the IGP ” should  come out transparently to convince Nigerians on the invitation extended to the former Aviation Minister, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode to appear before the Police for alleged Conspiracy, Criminal Defamation and Inciting Publication.”

IGP Idris

Recall that the police had in a letter dated August 20, 2018, invited Fani-Kayode to appear before the SP Usman Garba-led interrogation team today,   August 28, 2018  bordering on Conspiracy, Criminal Defamation, Inciting Publication, Injurious Falsehood and Conduct likely to Cause Breach of Peace.

 

Njoku  threatened to lead a mass human rights and Civil Group protests at the Force Headquarters, Abuja, “should Fani-Kayode be gruesomely and politically arrested, tortured and detained whilst Miyeti Allah of the Fulani herdsmen are encouraged and protected by this administration to commit genocide in Nigeria with utter impunity, Injurious Conduct, Conspiracy, Threats to Invade the Senate and Remove Senate President Bukola Saraki, Criminal Defamation likely to cause Breach of Peace.”

His words :”While I am not spontaneously against the rules of “Cap 19” of the Police Act as amended in 2011 to carry out any legal and lawful duties to maintaining law and order and fighting crime and criminality in our society, the Inspector General of Police should cognitively refrain from his unnecessary ill manner of deriving joy seeing dissent voices, opposition,  figures, journalists, bloggers, activists and other concerned Nigerians being intimidated, harassed, tortured, beaten, locked-up, humiliated and denigrated inhumanly without any reference and cause to the law of the land where constitutional democracy is practiced.

” Chapter (4) section 39 of the 1999 constitution, laid down fundamental propensities of right to freedom of expression and press which also states that every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference.

“If Fani-Kayode is gruesomely arrested, tortured and frivolously detained for his dissent voice and human rights crusade, I will lead a massive human rights and civil group protests at the Force Headquarters, Abuja with other Nigerians to ensure that his rights are not trampled upon in a government where constitutional democracy is falsely practiced with the Miyeti Allah of the Fulani herdsmen encouraged and protected by government to commit genocide with utter impunity, conspiracy, criminal defamation, threats to Invade the Senate and remove the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, inciting publication, injurious abuse and conducts that have serially breached the Peace, lives and property of the Nigerian people” he fumes.”

Njoku maintained  that “it is an inalienable rights of individuals like Fani-Kayode to express themselves and be heard without fear of discrimination and intimidation.

” Fani-Kayode has the inalienable rights to express himself and be heard without fear of discrimination and intimidation as an opposition figure and human rights lawyer.

” I do hope that the invitation is not a usual and conventional plot and tactics employed to emasculate citizens as being currently unleashed on activists, dissents, bloggers, journalists, media houses and other concerned citizens for alleged comments and publications considered to be against the interest of the ruling party, APC.

“This is because reports within the purview of the credible print media and other online platforms have it that Fani-Kayode’s invitation may not be unconnected with an interview he granted the African Independent Television (AIT) where he reportedly controverted claims by the Presidency and the APC that it was Senate President, Bukola Saraki, that masterminded the widely condemned invasion of the National Assembly recently and the article he published in August, 2018 titled “THE DESPERATE AGENDA OF AN EVIL TYRANT”

“Mr. Idris Ibrahim, should know that when individuals are free to express themselves in a supposed constitutional democracy, the society gets saner and the World gets better.

“Freedom of speech serves as a viable ingenuity to advancing the cause of liberty in the Nigeria nation state as it underpins most other rights and allows it to flourish. Today, freedom of speech and expression of opinion is recognized in international and regional human rights laws.

“But unfortunately, it has lost its place in Buhari’s government as journalists are put behind bars for sealing and speaking against the ills of government.

“There is little or no access to information on matters that relate to the government activities even with the Freedom of Information Act. In August, 2018, Mr. Samuel Ogundipe, a Premuim Times reporter was arrested, gruesomely detained and secretly arraigned to court without having access to his lawyers and family members by the order of the the number one police boss in Nigeria over an accusation that he stole and published police documents.

“On July 21 July 2016, a dozen of heavily-armed agents of the self-styled Department of State Services, arrested Mr. Jones Abiri who is the weekly publisher of Source Newspaper outside his office at number 288 Chief Melford Okilo Expressway, Yenogoa, Bayelsa State and detained him for two (2) years without any arraignment or trial for publishing contrary views of the Buhari government.

“IGP should therefore resist being used by the ruling party to unjustly harm fellow Nigerian citizens and channel his energies to the Meyiti Allah and the Fulani foot soldier herdsmen and Boko Haram terrorists who are daily slaughtering Nigerians in large number with heavily sophisticated weapons of mass destruction and leave the dissents and Fani-Kayode alone for crying out loud”.

End