The Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose, has warned the Department of
State Services (DSS) over 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 International), Bishop David Oyedepo, describing it
as indirect invitation to religious crisis in the country.
Governor Fayose alleged that, “There is plan 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 so to get
them remanded in Kuje Prison perpetually.”
He 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.
In a statement issued on Sunday by the governor’s Special Assistant on Public
Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose 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 the federal government to protect them.
The governor said; “Even though the DSS has allowed commonsense to
prevail by properly inviting Apostle Suleiman as against the gestapo
manner with which the service attempted to abduct him last week
Wednesday, it is still questionable that the DSS is more interested in
a man who threatened to defend himself against any attack by Fulani
herdsmen rather than those herdsmen that murdered thousands of
Nigerians.
The governor said; “it is sad and worrisome that after muzzling
opposition politicians, judiciary and the press, the APC led federal
government has taken its desperation to suppress dissenting voices in
the country to the House of God.”
Governor Fayose maintained that; “If the DSS had acted swiftly like it
is doing on Apostle Suleiman so-called inciting comments when people
were being killed by herdsmen across the country, so many lives would
have been saved.”
He advised the government and the DSS not to go ahead with these plans
as it will heat up the polity and threaten the peaceful coexistence of
Nigerians, calling on well meaning Nigerians to prevail on the federal
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 that the court ruled that he
should be released, affirmed that “he will continue to stand for
Nigeria and its people, not for any religion and it is my position
that rights of all Nigerians must be respected and protected.”
The governor urged the APC led federal government to pay attention to
the economy it destroyed, with the aim to revamping it and saving
Nigerians from the hunger ravaging the land.
“Nigeria is already being ravaged by war of hunger, economic
recession, job loss and lack of leadership direction. It will be
disastrous for the country to be plunged into religious crisis.
“Apart from during the civil war, Nigerians have not been badly
divided as a nation as we are under the President Muhammadu Buhari
administration. Killings under this government in 18 months are more
than what was witnessed in the last 20 years,” the governor said.