Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, says dictatorship is returning to Nigeria with the sealing-off of the residences of Sambo Dasuki, a retired colonel and former national security adviser.
He asked the president to put Boko Haram, and not Dasuki, under house arrest.
In a statement issued on Friday on the two-day-old SSS siege to Dasuki’s residence in Abuja, Fayose said the persecution of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwarts and others perceived as opposed to the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led federal government “is an ominous sign of imminent return of dictatorship and draconian rule in Nigeria”.
Maintaining that he believed the “invasion” does not have the blessing of President Muhammadu Buhari, Fayose said it is being done “by some people to please the president” and asked the president to check the excesses of those behind it.
“Democracy is already being put on trial, less than two months that President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office… Rather than invading homes of Nigerians and putting people under house arrest, the government should invade Boko Haram territories and arrest the insurgents,” he said.
“President Buhari should rather keep Boko Haram under house arrest, not opposition party members. Those heavily armed security men that invaded Col. Dasuki’s Abuja and Sokoto homes should have been put to a better use by sending them to the Boko Haram ravaged North Eastern part of Nigeria,” he said.
“The president should keep the rising exchange rates of Dollar, Pound Sterling, Euro and other foreign currencies under house arrest. He should pay attention to governance, be guided by the rule of law and be for everyone and for nobody as he promised when he was sworn into office.”
He advised Buhari to be magnanimous in victory, act like a leader and father of all Nigerians instead of seeing his return to power as an opportunity to revenge against those perceived to have wronged him in the past. Fayose said:
“Was there any invitation by the DSS to Col. Dasuki that he refused to honour? Isn’t it worrisome that in this democratic age, security agents could in a commando-like invade the house of a former NSA to carry out his arrest when there is no record that he was invited and he refused to honour the invitation, or that he resisted arrest?
“Could Col. Dasuki’s present ordeal be as a result of his advice that the presidential election be postponed? Is this not an indication of an impending clampdown on PDP members and other Nigerians perceived not to be on the same page with the President Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) government?
“We in the PDP supported our party during the presidential election like every other loyal party members should do, should this display of support for our party and its candidate now warrant persecution by the federal government?
“If Col. Dasuki actually committed any offence to warrant his arrest and questioning by the DSS or any of the country’s security agencies, shouldn’t warrant of arrest have been issued against him? Shouldn’t he have been invited by the DSS instead of invading his houses and sealing them off in a commando-liked manner?
“Nigerians must therefore rise against this emerging dictatorship and save the country’s democracy from imminent collapse because today, it is Col. Dasuki, tomorrow it can be any other person.”
He also spoke on Ike Ekweremadu, the deputy senate president, saying the “desperate plot” to remove him from office “is dangerous to democratic rule in Nigeria because there is no portion of the Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution that made positions of Senate President and Deputy Senate President the exclusive rights of the political party with highest number of senators”.
