Governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday morning claimed that Nigeria is gradually sliding into dictatorship under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Rising from a meeting of the PDP Governors’ Forum (PGF), held in the inner chamber of the Bayelsa State Governor’s office, Government House, Yenagoa, the governors decried the activities of the Department of State Security (DSS).
After the meeting that lasted for over two hours, the governors led by their chairman and Governor of Ondo State, Mr. Olusegun Mimiko, condemned the alleged invasion of Akwa Ibom State Government House by the DSS.
Reading the communiqué to journalists, Mimiko, said the action of the DSS was against the spirit, ethos, values and fundamental tenets of democratic norms and tradition especially with the existence of a duly elected and inaugurated governor of the state.
He said: “We insist that the trend must stop henceforth. No democracy survives without a viable opposition in any part of the world and we must also remember to remind the APC members that they are the real beneficiaries of the liberal democratic ethos of the PDP.
“We once more advise the DSS to preoccupy itself with the task of ensuring internal security and desist from daily harassing and intimidating members of the opposition.
“We implore the international community, the civil society organisations and human rights activists to call the APC- led Federal Government to order and to insist that it respects the well entrenched democratic tradition.
“We all have a duty to prevent what looks to us like a steady slide of this country into dictatorship.”
Mimiko said the PDP governors were disturbed, alarmed and shocked by what he described as desecration, adding that the action of the DSS was an assault on democracy.
He said the Akwa Ibom incident spelt doom and posed serious danger to the country’s fledgling democracy.
He said the development was one of the continuous attempts by the APC-controlled government to stifle the opposition.
Two governors and four deputy governors out of the 13 PDP-controlled states attended the meeting.
The governors present at the meeting were Mimiko and the host, Seriake Dickson.
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