Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike has lent his voice to those calling on the Information Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed to tone down his rhetoric.
Speaking at the the 13th edition of All Nigeria Editors conference, in Port Harcourt, Wike said well meaning Nigerians should call Mohammed to order over his irresponsible utterances and wild allegations against members of opposition political parties.
“Nigerians of goodwill must therefore call the Minister of Information to stop stoking the ambers of disharmony and divisions in the polity with his irresponsible utterances and wild allegations against members of opposition political parties.
“We are only pretending we think that all is well with our country. The country is in crisis as poor governance, nepotism, marginalization and state-sponsored repression continue to do violence to nation unity and cohesion”, he said.
“Nigeria has never witnessed the degree of contemporary agitations for justice and equity going on in the form of call for restructuring, fiscal federalism, demand for free and fair elections, stressing the need for “forthright leadership and consensus building to steer the ship of state from the wrong direction it is headed to safer grounds.”
“Today, the clamour for political restructuring, fiscal federalism, State police and guarantees for free and fair elections have never been this determined across the country and will never go away. It is becoming clearer by the day that to ignore these calls is pretentiously dangerous to the unity and peaceful co-existence of this country.” he added.
“For some of us therefore, there is nothing nobler than being counted on this path and as long as God gives us breathe we shall remain in the trenches fighting for our democratic rights and freedoms until victory is ultimately achieved.
But, we also believe that this is a fight that should and must be led by the media for full effect and agenda setting. This calls for greater vigilance and courage in giving effective voice to the contending issues and taking personal responsibility for factuality. It can’t be otherwise.” he added.