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ThisDay reports that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday urged President Muhammadu Buhari to remove the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami, for his alleged sympathy for terrorist organisations, including the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and Boko Haram.
The party also asked the Department of State Security to invite the minister for questioning. The PDP demanded that Buhari should immediately show Pantami the door given the sensitivity of the issue at stake.
According to a statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan: “Our party’s position is predicated on the heightening concerns in the public space and in the international arena of possible compromises by the communication minister, who has access to sensitive government documents and information, in addition to data of all individuals, including high profile personalities in the public and private sectors as well as the traditional and faith-based circles.”
The minister’s travails began early last week when a national newspaper amplified social media claims that he had been placed on the watch list by the United States for alleged links to terrorists.
Pantami, however, denied the claim, threatening to sue the newspaper for libel. The paper immediately retracted the story.
But that did not deter those who wanted to link him to terrorism as they released, in Social Media, past videos in which Pantami, a well-known Islamic scholar, was reported to have said that while he was against the extremist anti-western ideologies of Boko Haram, he supported some of what Al-Qaeda and Taliban had preached.
“The PDP is particularly worried about allegations in the public suggesting that the minister compromised the NIN (national identification number) registration exercise by giving room for the registration of aliens and invaders from other countries as our citizens,” the party said.
The newspaper says that the Nigerian government at the weekend stated that the freight services on the Warri-Itakpe standards gauge railway line would create more jobs for Nigerians and promote the ease of doing business in the country.
The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, stated this during the flagging-off of the freight service of standard gauge railway line at Ujevwu community, near Warri in Delta State.
He noted that the development and modernisation of the railway system had been a major focus of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government.
“We are here today to flag off commercial freight services on the standard gauge route that was abandoned for over 30 years but rehabilitated by this administration and put into operation.
“It has been one of the strategic aims of the present administration to ensure that all critical infrastructure abandoned by the previous administration, particularly those that would benefit the citizenry, are completed and inaugurated.
“The freight service will enhance more efficient, land-based and affordable mode for mass transit and freight services,” Amaechi said.
The Guardian reports that President Muhammadu Buhari has asked Nigerians to join hands with the Federal Government in its fight against insecurity, especially Boko Haram, to liberate the country from the claws of terrorists.
The President, who spoke yesterday in Kwapre village, Hong Local Council of Adamawa State, which was attacked last Wednesday by Boko Haram, added that his administration would not allow terrorists and other criminal gangs to take control of the country.
Addressing over 5,000 displaced people at Garaha Primary School, Buhari, who was represented by Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Boss Mustapha, said the government was making arrangements to return all the displaced persons to Kwapre, their ancestral hometown.
According to him, if the Internally-Displaced Persons (IDPs) are not returned to continue farming, which is their only source of livelihood, hunger alone will kill them more than Boko Haram.
“You are going back very soon under tight security in your area; so that you can go on with your farming activities. Government cannot abandon its constitutional responsibility of protecting life and property.
“President Buhari said I should tell you that he shares your pains with you and that government will provide all that can facilitate your return to your hometown and start your farming activities,” he stated.
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