The General Overseer of Omega Fire Ministries, Apostle Johnson Suleman, yesterday, asked the Federal Government to compel Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai to produce Fulani herdsmen to whom money was paid so as to disabuse the minds of Nigerians that Christians are not the target of President Muhammadu’s administration. The cleric in a statement by his Communications Adviser in Abuja, said failure to compel El-Rufai to produce the herdsmen who purportedly collected money from the Kaduna State Government is an indication of the insincerity of the Buhari administration.
“The Governor of Kaduna State confessed that he paid money to some Fulani herdsmen as compensation to stop the killings in Southern Kaduna. That means he knows those who have committed atrocities against Christians. He must be made to produce them to answer to charges of murder and other crimes”, he declared. Apostle Johnson Suleiman and Bishop David Oyedepo “El-Rufai can be safely regarded as an apologist of the herdsmen, and with a fact.
On July 12, 2012, he tweeted the following: “We will write this for all to read. Anyone, soldier or not that kills the Fulani takes a loan repayable one day no matter how long it takes.” The governor’s response to the killings in Southern Kaduna has been consistent with this mindset.
In a recent chat with newsmen in Kaduna, the governor made different remarks to substantiate his love the herdsmen and their activities. “First, he said when he became governor, he traced the attackers to Cameroon, Chad, and Niger and sent a message to them that one of their own, a Fulani like them, was now governor. This comment displays a dramatically bigoted mindset.
“A governor of a state in Nigeria was making appeals based on ethnic kinship and brotherhood to a group of foreign killers of people in his state!
In other words, he was appeasing his murderous foreign kinsmen at the expense of indigenes of his state who are not his ethnic kinsmen but whose safety and interests he swore to defend. “The governor shocking statement indicates that ethnic solidarity trumped his constitutional obligations to protect Southern Kaduna citizens from the external threats of foreign Fulani herdsmen,” he said.
Apostle Suleman’s statement came ahead of the invitation by the Department of State Services (DSS) to report at their office in Abuja on Monday, for reportedly asking members of his church to defend themselves if the Fulani herdsmen attacked them. But the General Overseer, through his communications adviser said the Federal Government would be engaging in double standards by asking the DSS to invite him while allowing El-Rufai to move about scot free, while adding that the fact that the latter has immunity does not preclude him from investigation. “There’s no end to the killing of Christians in Kaduna.
Those behind the heinous crime are known to the Governor. Yet no one has been charged for murder. Instead people like us who speak the truth are being persecuted. The Federal Government must not give the impression of partiality or suggest that Christians are the target of this administration,” he added.
Continuing, Apostle Suleman wondered why his recent speeches have been branded by agents of the Federal Government when all he has done is to remain consistent in telling the truth irrespective of whose ox is gored. Said he: “Which is worse? Saying the truth or offering money to murderers? Did El-Rufai offer money to ghosts? For you to pay someone money, the person must have a known and fixed address.
As chief security officer of the state, was it not his business to arrest and put these hoodlums on trial? How come no one has been caught or being prosecuted for the massacre in Southern Kaduna? Obviously, there’s more to it that meets the eye.” The head of the Omega Fire Ministries further admonished security agents not to allow politicians and ethnic warlords to use them to achieve parochial objectives, warning that such a development may lead to grave consequences for the nation. Also Apostle Suleman has demanded an unqualified apology from the security outfit or faces a legal action.
Apostle Suleman who in an open letter on Thursday to the head of the DSS in Abuja through his counsel, Olayiwola Afolabi and made available to journalists in Benin, said that men of the DSS invaded his hotel room while he was asleep with a view to illegally take him hostage. The letter was also copied to President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Yomi Osibanjo and the Inspector General of Police. He insisted that he was never told of the offences he has committed to warrant such an unlawful act that was carried out and neither there was a warrant of arrest shown to him by the DSS to warrant such unlawful treatment. Afolabi said,
“Our client demands and we so demand that forthwith within 24 hours, the day of services being inclusive, we will have no other option than to pursue a legal action against your agency wherein our client would have to claim exemplary damages for your politically motivated moves against our client.
“Further take note that we have the instruction of our client to employ any available lawful means to publicize through all lawful frontiers, this new wave of your now wanton “luciferic’ acts against harmless, innocent and trustworthy citizens” He held that every citizen has the constitutional right to privacy, freedom of thought, conscience and religion except under a sentence of a competent court of law in the country, adding that the action of the DSS was a clear breach of his constitutional rights as enshrined in the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.
He described the action of the DSS as harsh, hasty and unconscious able act calculated to undermine, scuttle and /or deliberately provoke the ire of a law abiding citizen whose constitutional right to freedom of expression, of association and freedom of expression was inherent.
Meantime, Ekiti State Governor and Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Governors’ Forum, Mr Ayodele Fayose has described 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 (Winners’ Chapel), Bishop David Oyedepo, as an invitation to religious crisis in the country.
Governor Fayose alleged that the Department of State Services, DSS, “plans 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 bail to get them remanded in Kuje Prison perpetually.” Fayose 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.
Governor Fayose, in a statement issued yesterday, by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, 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 failure of government to protect them.
He advised the government and the DSS not to go ahead with the plans as it will heat up the polity and threaten the peaceful coexistence of Nigerians, calling on well meaning Nigerians to prevail on 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 Nigeria’s Islamic Movement (IMN), 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 necessarily for any religion and it is my position that rights of all Nigerians must be respected and protected.”
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