The Peoples Democratic Party has decried the continued detention of the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Chief Olisa Metuh, by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission who stormed his residence in Abuja on Tuesday and arrested him.
In a Wednesday statement by its National Secretary, Prof. Adewale Oladipo, the party called for the immediate release of Metuh, stating that it had uncovered a plot to kill him in detention.
The party said it was aware of a purported plot to poison Metuh, questioning the rationale behind the decision of the EFCC to deny him of the services of his lawyer.
The statement read in part: “For whatever reason Chief Metuh was arrested, his rights as a citizen under the law must not be trampled upon. We therefore demand his immediate release and that due process of investigation and prosecution concerning him should be strictly adhered to.
“We state this because we have been made aware of top directives to break Chief Metuh and if possible poison him during his detention by the EFCC.
“Chief Metuh, has since his arrest at about 10 am, been kept incommunicado, with his lawyers denied access to him.”
“The PDP declares the arrest of our spokesman as the last straw that may break our democracy. We therefore forewarn the Federal Government and its agencies to save our democracy and forthwith release our National Publicity Secretary.
“We are also calling on the international community and well-meaning Nigerians to stand up for this democracy, which our party nurtured for 16 years and deepened to a level where the opposition, for the first time in our political history, had the opportunity to win in a general election.”
The statement added: “The arrest of Chief Metuh today underscores the growing political intolerance in our country and the foisting of a police state which was last Wednesday underscored by the President and Commander-in-Chief himself, who defended why a government in a democracy should flout constitutional provision and brazenly disobey court orders.
“This onslaught against our spokesman, according to intelligence available to us is part of a larger script by the government to ensure that PDP wings are finally clipped in their mission to install a dictatorial one-party state in the country.”
PDP said “the excesses of security agencies under this government, especially the Directorate of Security Services (DSS) and the EFCC, in abridging the human rights of PDP members have become worrisome and a threat to our democratic evolution.
“Nigerians and the international community will recall that on a number of occasions, the PDP, through its spokesman has been outspoken on some undemocratic proclivities being exhibited by the APC-led Federal
Government in the last seven months.”