The Ekiti State Governor and Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party
Governors’ Forum, Ayodele Fayose, has warned the Department of State
Services over the planned detention and trial of Apostle Johnson
Suleiman of the Omega Fire Ministries Worldwide and the General Overseer
of Living Faith Church Worldwide International, popularly known as
Winners’ Chapel International, Bishop David Oyedepo.
Fayose described the move by the DSS as an indirect invitation to religious crisis in the country.
Governor
Fayose alleged: “There is plan to charge Apostle Suleiman and Bishop
Oyedepo for incitement and attempt to cause public disorder on Friday,
and make sure that they are not granted so to get them remanded in Kuje
Prison perpetually.”
He said this plan was to humiliate these men
of God as well as silence them and create fear in other people that may
want to speak against the heinous crime against humanity being committed
daily, while perpetrators are being shielded by the Federal Government.
In
a statement issued on Sunday by his Special Assistant on Public
Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose said the
DSS should tell Nigerians how many of the Fulani herdsmen that killed
thousands of Nigerians across the country have been arrested before
going after Nigerians who merely expressed their frustration over the to
failure of the Federal Government to protect them.
The governor
said: “Even though the DSS has allowed commonsense to prevail by
properly inviting Apostle Suleiman as against the gestapo manner with
which the service attempted to abduct him last week Wednesday, it is
still questionable that the DSS is more interested in a man who
threatened to defend himself against any attack by Fulani herdsmen
rather than those herdsmen that murdered thousands of Nigerians.
“It is sad and worrisome that after muzzling opposition politicians,
judiciary and the press, the APC led federal government has taking its
desperation to suppress dissenting voices in the country to the House of
God.
“If the DSS had acted swiftly like it is doing on Apostle
Suleiman so-called inciting comments when people were being killed by
herdsmen across the country, so many lives would have been saved.”
Fayose
advised the government and the DSS not to go ahead with these plans as
it will heat up the polity and threaten the peaceful coexistence of
Nigerians, calling on well meaning Nigerians to prevail on the Federal
Government to desist from acts capable of throwing the country into
further crisis.
Governor Fayose, who reiterated his call for the
release of the head of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, Sheikh Ibrahim
El-Zakzaky, who has been in detention since late 2015 despite a court
ruling that he should be released, affirmed that he “will continue to
stand for Nigeria and its people, not for any religion and it is my
position that rights of all Nigerians must be respected and protected”.
The
governor urged the APC-led Federal Government to pay attention to the
economy it destroyed, with the aim to revamping it and saving Nigerians
from the hunger ravaging the land.
He said: “Nigeria is already
being ravaged by war of hunger, economic recession, job loss and lack of
leadership direction. It will be disastrous for the country to be
plunged into religious crisis.
“Apart from during the civil war,
Nigerians have not been badly divided as a nation as we are under the
President Muhammadu Buhari administration. Killings under this
government in 18 months are more than what was witnessed in the last 20
years.”
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