Niger Delta youths under the auspices of Niger Delta Youth Forum NDYF, Tuesday, condemned the Federal Government over recent publishing of names purported to be looters of public treasury on the media. This was contained in a statement signed by the National Coordinator, NDYF, Hon Peretimi Tekena, who described the action led by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, defamatory and unfounded.
According to Tekena the intention of the government was to dent the reputation of those on the list without court convictions as enshrined in the constitution. The statement reads in part: “Our attention has been drawn to publications and electronic broadcasts attributed to the Minister of information, Mr. Lai Mohammed, listing persons connected with PDP considered to have looted various sums from government treasury.
"And that such sum has been recovered from them. This is unacceptable and we condemn it because it is direct ploy to dent the name and respect of these persons whose cases are still in court and no conviction pronounced on them and their actions.“Lai Mohammed must be very careful with the way he is going now, because is not going to be taken lightly because it is legally wrong to place scandal on these names.
"All is a targeted campaign of calumny against these people who are presumed innocent until their cases were completed through legal means.“This is malicious and defamatory of President Muhammadu Buhari and his boy Lai Mohammed to drag them into the mud because you want to make the world believe you are fighting corruption and to score cheap popularity and political point ahead of 2019.”
According to the statement which demanded that the federal government should have a rethink on these names published and for not allowing the courts to do their jobs that also may lead to unnecessarily heating up of the polity with such publications.
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