A human rights activist and Convener, Save Lagos Group, Comrade Adeniyi Alimi Sulaiman, has cautioned President Muhammadu Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress, to stop de-marketing the presidential candidate of the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, over unfounded allegations of corruption.
Suleiman said unfounded allegations against political opponents was just overheating the polity unnecessarily.
He also urged President Buhari and his party to believe in politics without bitterness by also believing that formidable and virile opposition is one of the ingredients democracy needs to survive in any clime.
In a statement issued and made available to newsmen in Lagos on Wednesday, the SLG Convener called on Buhari to base his campaign on issues of good governance and not on frivolity, noting that Nigerians are now wiser than ever to choose between the empty promises of Buhari and new hope of Abubakar.
He further averred that all the 2015 electioneering campaign promises of Buhari have been cancelled at the initial stage of the present administration by saying he did not promise Nigerians, but his party did, stating that Nigerians were regretting casting their votes en mass for Buhari in 2015 because the purported APC change in governance is yet to have bearing on the lives of the Nigerian masses.
Sulaiman, who doubles as the Executive Chairman, Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice, challenged any Nigerian that has any evidence of corruption against Abubakar to channel it through the appropriate quarters instead of engaging in campaign of calumny and character assassination over unfounded corrupt allegation.
He further described the much acclaimed war against corruption of the Buhari led- Federal Government as ruse and witch hunting of the political opponents ahead of 2019 general elections.
According to him: “Nigeria is not a Banana Republic where citizen would just engage in character assassination not to talk government which has every apparatus to arrest, detain and prosecute anybody found culpable of any corrupt practices.
“Political actors should realize that Nigeria as a country has rules and regulations guiding the conduct of government and governed.
“We are restating our challenge to any Nigerian who has any evidence of corrupt allegation against former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to channel it through appropriate Federal Government agencies under Buhari’s watch. We also appealed to Buhari’s government not to hesitate to approach the Court of competent jurisdiction if there is any corrupt practice against Atiku instead of trending on frivolous allegation in the media.
“We are not supposed to make any comment on this issue because we are not mouth piece for Atiku but as a stakeholder in the Nigeria democratic project, we should not allow political actors to truncate our hard earned nurturing democracy by sending the note of warning to them on the implications of raising unfounded and frivolous corrupt allegation against political opponent instead of based issues of campaign on how to move the country forward in the area of employment generation, electricity, provisions of social amenities and so on.”
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