Following concerns over the past sermons of Dr Isa Pantami, minister of Communications and Digital Economy, relating to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda groups, some Nigerians and groups are piling pressure on President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately sack the minister, given the sensitivity of the issue at stake.
Also yesterday in Kaduna, a certain Prof. Samuel Achi, claimed that Sunday Achi, his son and a 400-level student Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi, was strangled to death inside the mosque where Pantami held court.
Pantami has since renounced his past controversial comments, explaining that he was young when he made the radical comments, adding that he is now mature and now knows better.
But some Nigerians have started a #PantamiResign campaign on the social media, calling on the President to sack the minister,
The Nigerian Twitter community also said the minister could not be trusted with the data of Nigerians, especially with the ongoing National Identification Number (NIN) and Subscriber Identity Module integration exercise under his watch.
Elsewhere, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has warned President Muhammadu Buhari that his administration might be termed a sympathiser of the Al-Queada and Taliban should he refuse to sack the minister.
Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and Zainab Yusuf; national coordinator, and national media affairs director, respectively of the group, in a statement, urged Buhari to dismiss Pantami for his affinity and endorsement of global jihadist movement.
The statement reads: “It is in the interest of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to clear suspicions that it is a sympathiser of international terrorism by sacking Pantami who has admitted espousing the teachings of Al- Queada and Taliban previously.”
According to HURIWA, Buhari would be sued to the International Criminal Court (ICC) if he refuses to do the right thing.
It said patriotic groups could canvass claims that the mass killings of Christians in the North by armed herdsmen and Islamists were tolerated by the President because of his decision to keep a man who had confessed to have backed Al- Queada and Taliban.
Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike has also asked Pantami to resign immediately.
Wike said Pantami ought to have resigned from his position immediately information about his extremist views became a matter of public discourse.
He described as worrisome the government’s decision to remain mute as worrisome.
Also reacting, Ndudi Elumelu, member, House of Representatives, said the minister’s statement was a breach of privilege and should not be allowed.
Elumelu, who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives, noted that minister occupies a very sensitive position and the comments should not be overlooked.
Also yesterday, Prof. Samuel Achi, claimed that Sunday Achi, his son and a 400-level student Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi, was strangled to death inside the mosque where Pantami held court
Sunday Achi’s crime was that he was said to have distributed a Christian tract which Sheik Pantami had said blasphemed Islam and Prophet Mohammed.
That was on December 9, 2004.
According to Niche online, the story was that Achi was dragged out from his room by Muslim fundamentalists at the prompting of Pantami, taken to a remote location within the school premises where he was stoned to death.
But according to the father of the late student, Prof. Samuel Achi, in Kaduna, his son was strangled to death inside the mosque where Pantami held court, not stoned.
“One thing I know that you people (media) got wrong was that my son was not stoned to death. He was strangled inside the mosque and they threw the corpse outside the university mosque,” he said.
He insisted that there was nothing blasphemous in the tract his son and his colleagues shared that should warrant a death sentence.
Achi narrated how a former governor of Kaduna state helped in retrieving his son’s corpse from Bauchi for burial in Kaduna by liaising with the then governor of Bauchi State, Adamu Muazu.
Many Nigerians have called for the sacking or resignation of Pantami after some comments he made some years ago came into light.
“We are all happy whenever unbelievers are killed,” Pantami once said as an Islamic scholar and cleric.
He also hailed Osama Bin Laden, who orchestrated the terrorist attacks on United States soil on September 11, 2001, saying the terrorist “is a better Muslim than myself.”
Pantami once also condemned Muslims who took up government positions, saying he would never join politics or take up a role in government.
