Handcuffing of Metuh, plan to cast PDP in bad light, say PDP governors

Handcuffing of Metuh, plan to cast PDP in bad light, say PDP governors

January 21, 2016

Written by:

LEON USIGBE AND JACOB SEGUN
PEOPLES Democratic Party (PDP) Governors Forum has observed that the party's spokesman, Chief Olisa Metuh, was brought to court in handcuffs in order to deride him and the opposition party. In a statement issued by the Coordinator of the forum, Osaro Onaiwu, in Abuja on Thursday, the governors described as "a new low," the handcuffing, stating that the APC administration was a step away from full-blown fascism. The forum said the action was to cast the PDP in bad light before Nigerians as a party of corrupt individuals even when they were yet to be convicted by any competent court. The governors said the All Progressives Congress (APC) government was yet to learn from history, hence "its banal exhibitionism and Telemundo antics of subjecting accused persons like Metuh to inhuman treatment." The statement said: “The only reasonable conclusion we have reached is that the anti-corruption agencies and other institutions of state have allowed themselves to be dictated to by a single vindictive authority which takes pleasure in using power anyhow and in anyway in gross abuse of the constitution, African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and human liberty. “The handcuffing of the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP exemplifies a terrible decay of power by the APC government which sees itself bigger than the democratic state, Nigeria, which brought it to power. “For the avoidance of doubt, the Forum is not against the anti-corruption mantra of the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, but we insist it must be within the ambit of our constitution and appropriate laws. “Any other means is a descent into fascism with its attendant consequences in the long run."