Date Published: 05/12/09
12th May 2009. Press Release.
“RE-OPEN ADABA FM AND FREE THE NIGERIAN SPACE”, LAGOS AC DEMANDS.
The Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress has described as dictatorial, oppressive and high handed the decision of the federal government to shut down Adaba FM Radio Station. The party believes that the action of the government and its agents speaks of a regression to tyranny, which the Yar’Adua government has embraced in the face of the daunting criticisms for its monumental failures in all facets of national life.
In a release in Lagos, signed by the party’s Lagos State Publicity Secretary of AC, Joe Igbokwe, the party warns the Yar’Adua government and the PDP that there are inherent dangers in attempting to muzzle contrary views and opinions in its desperate attempts to control the country’s political space through crooked means. It says that what the PDP and Yar’Adua government is doing is capable of truncating the flailing and heavily compromised democracy in place presently.
“In its desire to conscript the political space for its narrow interests, this government has, once again, put its worst feet forward by shutting a radio station for airing contrary opinions to its own. What the government and the PDP did in Ekiti State are open secrets every Nigerian knows so it cannot find a scape goat in a radio station that balanced the highly partisan showing of state radios, sustained with tax payers monies. We see this as yet a further attempt to force down the do-or-die interests of the PDP and conscript the country’s political space to the selfish and narrow interests of the cabal in PDP who are sworn to the destruction of the country.
“We see the siege on Adaba FM as a continuation of the high level of contempt with which the PDP holds the media as it tries to expose its nefarious acts, which have compromised the country and its political process. We see this latest warfare against the free press as a desperate fallback in the wake of the distasteful charade the PDP perpetrated in Ekiti State, which culminated in the daylight robbery of the mandate the Ekiti people gave to Dr. Kayode Fayemi. We wonder how long the PDP wants to perpetrate this sordid act and how many more institutions that ignite an open society the PDP is targeting for muzzling as its dictatorial instincts wax more deadly.
“We are worried that the Yar’Adua government is becoming so intolerant and so rash in its reactions to Nigerians’ growing demand for an open society, a free and fair electoral system, accountability and probity in its conduct of the affairs of the country. We are concerned that the Yar’Adua government and the PDP are fast pulling Nigeria into the stone ages because they deign that as germane for their continued feasting on the country. We warn that Nigerians are getting to the point where they will not bear the excesses of the PDP any longer. We warn the PDP not to push its luck further by believing that Nigerians are forever fooled and cowed.
“We want for the immediate re-opening of Adaba FM radio station and immediate cessation of the siege on the free press in Nigeria. Furthermore, we want the present government to commit itself to the enthronement of an open society where the citizens have unencumbered rights to air their views and opinions. We warn that the PDP is courting real danger if it believes that it would establish forceful occupation of Nigeria through suppressing dissenting opinions. Nigerians will never allow that.”
Joe Igbokwe.
Publicity Secretary,
Lagos AC.
