Group kicks against Shettima comments on NASS election

By Abubakar Yunusa, Abuja

The Civil Society Organisation under the aegies of Democracy Watch Initiative (DWI), has kicked against Vice President, Kashim Shettima, over comments on the leadership National Assembly members.

They say that the current leadership in Nigeria is underlined by impunity with officials riding roughshod over the law.

Addressing journalists on Monday, in Abuja, group Secretary, Lawal Rabiu Tinka, called on all Nigerians to rise and get involved in this struggle to free Nigerian and democracy from this emerging dictatorship.

He said: “Today we say, this impunity must stop and call on all Nigerians, young and old, men and women, traditional, cultural and religious leaders, politicians, civil servants, businessmen and women, teachers and students, the media and the civil society to rise and get involved in this struggle to free our country and our democracy from this emerging dictatorship.

“We invite the attention of Nigeria’s friends in the international community to the emerging trend trend in Nigeria and call on them to be vigilant as to the direction our country and our democracy are headed.

“To call out Kashim Shettima’s hypothetical inconsistency in speaking out against the use of religion in politics in one breathe and in another breathe manipulating the same religious sentiments to drive this dangerous agenda.

“To warn Kashim Shettima and all those in authority who are pursuing this agenda to weaken judicial and legislative authority that Nigerians and indeed the world, will not stand by and watch them endanger democracy and the rule of law, or push the Nigerian society itself into the danger of descending into disorder.”

They said that Shettima is casting aside civility in a manner that suggests subversion of the law and democracy by the persons that elected and entrusted to uphold him with the constitution.

He added, “We find it disheartening that the current executive arm of government, by its recent actions or complicit silence, appears bent on dwarfing the other arms of government by arbitrarily abusing the amplitude and plenitude of privileges allowed to it.

“We are worried also that while the principle and practice of the separation of powers, is a major hallmark of democratic governance, players in the current administration, in open display of recklessness, are working on violating this major pillar, thereby threatening orderly society and potentially placing democracy and the Nigerian state at imminent risk.

“Whereas in practice, each organ is constitutionally barred from encroaching on the boundaries of another organ, we note a rising level of intensification of the desperation of the executive arm of this government to impose a leadership on the legislature by every means and tactics.

“This dangerous desperation has led to devising various schemes to deny major aspirants to the Senate Presidency and Speakership of the House of Representatives their constitutional rights to seek election through a democratic due process.

“These devices, we note, include plans to forcefully deny them and their perceived supporters access to the Assembly on the day of inauguration, harassing and intimidating them through stage managed arrest and most recently securing a frivolous court injunction against the aspiration of Abdul’aziz Yari in particular.

“We fear that if such level of arrogant dictatorship, autocratic arbitrariness, and blatant impunity are left unchecked, Nigeria’s democracy would collapse totally under this administration before it clocks one year.”

By Lateef Ibrahim, Abuja

The candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the February 25 presidential election, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has charged the media to educate the public and help them understand what democracy stands for.

The call was contained in his Democracy Day message to Nigerians on Monday.

Adebayo noted that even though democracy, as it is practiced, in Nigeria today might be imperfect, it still remains the fairest and surest way by which the minority could have their say and the majority, their way.

Adebayo charged public office holders to service the people with humility, reminding them that government is not a place for revenge, personal reward, egoism and aggrandizement, but rather a place of servant-hood on behalf of the rest of the citizens, who cannot converge at the state house or the