Willies Danjuma, Gombe
The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in Gombe State has condemned the arrest and continued detention of one of its members and an on-air radio presenter over comments on perimeter fencing of the Government House.
Yakubu Halliru, an on-air radio presenter with Jewel FM Gombe and a member of the NNPP, Malam Ahmed Mandi who was a guest of a radio programme, were arrested by the Police on Wednesday over comments made on alleged bogus amount spent on perimeter fencing of the Government House.
As at Thursday morning, it was gathered that Halliri had been released while there was no report yet of Malam Mandi’s release.
When contacted through a phone call for their reaction, the Gombe State Police Command’s Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Mahid Mu’azu Abubakar, promised to call back but didn’t over an hour and half before this report was filed.
A statement by the NNPP’s State Publicity Secretary, Mohammed Kabir Makko, while condemning the Police’s action, alleged that the security agents acted on the script designed by the Inuwa Yahaya led Gombe State Government.
It said the actions of the State Government amount to a very crude form of press gagging and that the NNPP rejects it as obnoxious, condemnable and totally unacceptable more so, that NBC had not flagged the station for any violation.
According to the Publicity Secretary, Malam Mandi, whose freely donated opinion was used as an excuse by the security agents to detain an innocent journalist, was totally condemnable.
The statement reads, “It must be said that if the Gombe State Government had followed due process in the award of the white Elephant project, the cost of which was used as an excuse to lock up two innocent citizens, there would have been no need for anyone to quote bogus numbers.
“The total contract sum would have been public knowledge, making any attempt to inflate it a case of calculated mischief. You don’t shroud public expenditure in secrecy and expect the masses not to plug the gap of silence with whatever they can lay their hands on.
“In the light of the above, the NNPP rejects the self-righteous card at play and insist that to come to equity, Inuwa Yahaya must first put his hands forward for thorough examination.
“And since the Gombe state Government erred in the contract award process, it has lost the moral ground to accuse anyone of bandying outrageous numbers.
“Even though constructing the perimeter fence represents the very height of misplaced priority, our Party is well aware that the people of Gombe are still very much interested in knowing the full contract sum and it is only right for the state government to make these numbers available and desist from further harassing anyone trying to call them to account.
It is in view of the above that the NNPP urges the Gombe state Commissioner of Police to, as a matter of urgency, cause the immediate release of the duo of Yakubu Halliru and Malam Ahmed Mandi or charge them to court because their incarceration has exceeded the legally accepted police custody period.
