State Governors elected under the platform of the People’s Democratic Party, (PDP) have raised alarm over heightened political persecution, claiming that Nigeria was sliding into dictatorship under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Rising from its meeting held at the Bayelsa State Governor’s office, Yenagoa on Tuesday, the governors under the auspices of the PDP Governors Forum condemned the invasion of Akwa Ibom State Government House by operatives of the Department of the State Services, (DSS).
The PDP governors led by its chairman and Governor of Ondo State, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, in a communiqué, claimed the invasion violated the spirit, ethos, values and fundamental tenets of democratic norms and tradition, as well as principles of federalism.
“We insist that the trend must stop henceforth. No democracy survives without a viable opposition in any part of the world and we must also remember to remind the All Progressives Congress, APC that they are the real beneficiaries of the liberal democratic ethos of the PDP,” Governor Mimiko declared.
The communique reads further: “We again advise the DSS to preoccupy itself with the task of ensuring internal security and desist from daily intimidation of members of the opposition. We implore the international community, the civil society organisations and human rights activists to call the APC-led Federal Government to order and to insist that it respects the well entrenched democratic tradition.
“We all have a duty to prevent what looks to us like a steady slide of this country into dictatorship.”
Mimiko, who said that the PDP governors were alarmed and shocked by such desecration, noting that it was an assault on democracy.
By Olisemeka Obeche
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