The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) condemns the violent attack on Nigerians by hoodlums, allegedly sponsored by the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led administration, while peacefully protesting the widespread abuse of human rights in the country under the APC repressive rule.
The party says such attack on Nigerians holding a protest within their constitutionally guaranteed rights points to nothing but the furtherance of the suppressive plot by the APC and its leaders in government to subjugate Nigerians, foist a siege mentality on the citizenry and force them to surrender to a repressive rule.
The world watched with shock as hoodlums chanting the “sai baba” slogan, known with supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC, violently descended on citizens peacefully protesting at the Nigerian Human Right Commission (NHRC) complex in Abuja, with dangerous weapons and abducted protesters in the full glare of security operatives.
The PDP invites Nigerians to note how hoodlums were recruited to mask an orchestrated tyrannical design to subdue constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and opinion in our country.
By their chants, the public is not in doubt as to whose interest the hoodlums were deployed to serve by attacking Nigerians who were protesting the violation of rights in our country.
The burden now lies at the doorstep of the APC and the Buhari administration. Our party challenges them to come out clean on this matter.
The PDP reminds the APC and its administration to note that Nigeria is a democratic state governed by law and that such reprehensible designs against the citizens can only be a recipe for civil unrest and anarchy.
The party, therefore, calls on security agencies to save the nation from a civil unrest by immediately arresting and prosecuting the culprits as well as provide adequate security for Nigerians exercising their civic rights, including the right to peaceful protest.
Signed:
Kola Ologbondiyan
National Publicity Secretary.
