The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the main opposition party in Nigeria, has urged Donald Trump, US President to rise and guard against anti-democratic issues and human rights abuses perpetrated by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the country.
This call came in the wake of President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to United States of America in honour of the invitation by President Trump.
US is seen as the harbingerg of the world’s freest democracy inaugurated 215 years ago and presided over by its first President, George Washington.
“We, therefore, urge President Donald Trump to stand up for democracy and take President Buhari to task on constitutional and human rights violations in Nigeria under his watch,” Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP National Publicity Secretary, said at a press conference Friday.
Ologbondiyan noted that President Buhari’s administration has wrecked the nation’s democratic order, eroded constitutionally guaranteed rights of citizens while foisting a siege mentality on the people.
He pointed out that “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 warrants; 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., he said.
The Publicity Secretary added that the Amnesty International (AI) 2017/2018 Human Rights report confirmed cases of extreme human right violations under the Buhari administration.
These, he cited to include extra-judicial execution, forceful crackdown on peaceful demonstrators as witnessed in the South East between September 2017 and January 2018 as well as torture and killings in custody, adding that many of those who were arrested were still in detention without trial. Ologbondoiyan noted that the ‘Bring Back our Girls’ group that freely protested unmolested in 2014 and 2015 were today hounded and manhandled wherever and whenever they dare to come to out on a peaceful protest.
“The recent US government’s report on human rights violation in Nigeria also confirmed cases of harassment, 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 and Enugu states, 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.
“We also pray that President Buhari will not use the occasion of his visit to President Trump to further de-market our nation as he has always done whenever he is outside the country on official assignment,” Ologbondoiyan added.
Also, Prince Uche Secondus, the party’s National Chairman, in a statement by his media adviser, Ike Abonyi, described Nigeria as a police state under the ruling APC.
Secondus in the statement noted that the on-going clampdown on persons not in agreement with the views of government either in the opposition party or within their APC fold is a clear evidence of the desperation of Buhari’s to suppress free speech and association which are indispensable requirements for democracy to flourish.
(The Vanguard)
