The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has urged the Governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi to retract his call for the Nigerian security agencies to invite Nigerians who make unsubstantiated remarks on the internet.
SERAP made the call on Thursday after the Governor’s appearance on the Channels Television Morning Programme ‘Sunrise Daily’ stating that Nigerians were only exercising their rights on socialedia.
“BREAKING: We urge Ebonyi State Governor Dave Umahi to immediately withdraw his illegal call on Nigeria’s security agents to ‘invite’ Nigerians simply for peacefully exercising their rights on social media.
We’ll hold Mr Umahi to account if his call leads to violations of rights.“
Governor was quoted by ChannelsTV saying that due to the level of crimes in the country, it would be ideal for the Department of State Secret Service to invite anyone who makes unsubstantiated statements to explain as the country cannot fold its hands and watch the country plunge into war.
“The level of crimes in the country is as a result of unpatriotic acts of a lot of us. We, leaders, we come out on television and then we speak, indict other regions, we speak against other regions, we pick on the leader of the country and then castigate the leader of the country. There is no patriotism at all.
“The way to prevent this thing is that if you are making unsubstantiated statements in the social media, the police, the SSS, you should be invited to explain and this is no politics because the country cannot fold our hands and allow people to plunge the country into another war. This is very important,” Umahi said.
“I was told that one of the world wars started with a family quarrel and so if you are making a statement on social media calling it freedom of speech, you must come to the law to substantiate it.
“What I have in the (Ebonyi) State, the communal clash now should have stopped but for the politicians who are making unguarded accusations and statements in the social media and then people outside the state will just cash on that and emotions will arise and the problem will continue.”
