All Progressives Congress Openly Condemn Harassment Of Dep Nat/Sec By DSS

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has strongly condemned the harassment of its Deputy National Secretary, Malam Nasir El-Rufai by the Department of State Security (DSS), describing as a shameful overkill the storming of his residence in Abuja by armed DSS operatives on Friday, without producing any arrest warrant.
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In a statement issued in Abuja on Friday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party expressed shock that the DSS was seeking to arrest El-Rufai for merely exercising his constitutional right of free speech.
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It said there was nothing inciting or extraordinary in the statement credited to Malam El-Rufai that there might be violence if the 2015 general elections were not free and fair.
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’’What our Deputy National Secretary said is a statement of fact and should not warrant any harassment, unless of course the DSS is saying that the 2015 general elections will not be free and fair,’’ APC said.
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’’The statement is a matter of cause and effect and amounts to a patriotic call for the 2015 general elections to be free, fair and credible. If this statement now rankles the DSS, then the department has a lot of explanation to do to convince Nigerians that it was not engaging in a witch-hunt, considering the case instituted by Malam El-Rufai against it (DSS) over his illegal detention in a hotel in Akwa during the Anambra governorship poll last November,’’ the party said.
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It wondered why the DSS has suddenly found its agility, after playing dead when people like Chief Edwin Clark, Asari Dokubo and Chukwuemeka Ezeife issued a direct threat to Nigeria’s continued existence over President Goodluck Jonathan’s second term ambition.
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‘’The DSS is free to join the police in becoming a partisan and compromised national institution, but it should weigh the consequences of such action on its long-term credibility,’’ APC said.