Gentlemen of the Press, as a people with good character, good conscience and quest for justice, we are again experiencing dark days through plans to ride and exert impunity on anything and anyone that has the semblance of opposition to the present Government of Kaduna State whether valid or not. The show of de-taste is manifested more and more with the passion in which Kaduna State government and its sponsors hove and glide without restraint at the boundaries and shores of criticism. Unless such acts of intolerance on perverting justice are jettisoned, the fragile democracy in Nigeria will suffer a huge blow due to indifference.

We are not surprised that the articulation of the grand design and implementation of plans are centered on the mass movement of government and its proxies to deter and cow everyone who move against their whims and caprices. This is demonic and unacceptable.

We are concerned with the way the State Government is continuing with the deliberate persecution of Dr. John Danfulani, for allegedly criticizing the policies of government that he wasn’t comfortable. His present arraignment before a Kaduna high court was on the same case the Magistrate court in Kaduna threw out in February when the Commissioner of Police arraigned Danfulani. Moreover, because of the subtle harassment, he even resigned from his lecturing job at the Kaduna State University.

Eight months later, when all parties have gone their separate ways, the State Government exhumed the case this October and filed it afresh in a state High Court. The curious angle is that the State Government isn’t appealing the decision of the Magistrate Court but instituting a fresh case, using the same charges that were presented but thrown out by the Magistrate Court. And when Dr. Danfulani voluntarily appeared in court through a court summons sent to his house, he was promptly remanded in prison custody for 12 days pending the commencement of his bail request fixed for the 7th of November, 2016. This is in addition to the six days he spent in prison in January before his bail request could be heard on the same case.

Dr. John Danfulani has become a voice that should be viewed and digested as that of conscience and wake-up call. His voice is meant to serve as a check for people at the helms of affairs of governance everywhere, who should look inward and conquer self and give room to reasoning and intellect.

As indigenes of Kaduna State, we are neither blind nor foolish; we understand wholesale the machinations of scared and fragile individuals and their quest to silence this individual using the tax payer’s money at their disposal. The Governor has continued to play with the intellect of people by pretenses, yet he enjoyed a lavish atmosphere in the past to instigate, pollute and debased past administrations without hindrance. The incarceration of Dr. John Danfulani over a bailable matter that another court has quashed make us wonder to what use, to whose gain it has for the benefit of Kaduna State.

In view of the foregoing, we condemn strongly and in unequivocal terms the deliberate political incarceration of Dr. John Danfulani by the Kaduna State government instead of using such resources to address the sprawling terrorist attacks, kidnapping and armed robbery ravaging the State. Where energies are required to be channeled to, the government of Nasir El-Rufai has failed; rather, they are more committed to maligning and the incarceration of people who criticize them.

The attitude with which the voices of the people are treated is that of disdain and quest to crush us. While the Governor and his proxies continue to play politics with our lives, they should know that whatever goes up will surely come down. We refuse to accept anything that perverts justice. Governor El-Rufai should realise that this is a human rights violation and intellectual genocide being meted upon our good loving brother and his family. This impunity must stop because we are watching and documenting everything.

Signed: Tobias T. Usman (PhD)

Chairman, Concerned Southern Kaduna Professionals