ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Campaign Organisation has described as amusing the threat by the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) to report the First Lady, Patience Jonathan to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for indulging in hate speech during her campaign in Calabar, Cross River State recently.
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Speaking at a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, director, media and publicity of the PDP Campaign Organisation said the APC was ignorant of the way ICC works.
He said it is only if s speech results in violence and mayhem leading to mass murder that a person who made the speech could be a candidate for ICC.
He said General Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of the APC needed to answer questions concerning his role in the July 29, 1966 coup which led to the murder of 300 Igbo army officers; his (Buhari’s) role in the massacre of Igbos in the northern part of the country in 1966 in which no fewer than 100,000 civilian Igbos died, and the 2011 post-election violence which claimed the lives of youth corps members in the northern part of the country.
Fani-Kayode said the APC should apologise to traditional rulers from the Southwest for deriding them in a recent advertorial in which the opposition party portrayed President Goodluck Jonathan as serving both “God and mammon” because he was being prayed for by Southwest traditional rulers.
He said: “We read, with amusement, the threat by the Buhari’s Campaign Organisation through their spokesperson, Mr Garba Shehu, that it is their intention to drag the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, before the International Criminal Court of Justice (ICC), for allegedly indulging in what they described as ”hate speech” at a recent rally in Rivers State.
“It is pertinent to note that, first of all, if they were a little better educated and had a better understanding of international law and how the ICC works, they would appreciate the fact that no individual is ever taken to the ICC based on what he or she has said unless and until people act on those words and massacre others. It is only if that speech is followed by violence and mayhem or if it incites people to commit violence, which results in death, mass murder and crimes against humanity, that the person who indulged in such hate speech becomes an eligible candidate for the ICC.
“Dame Patience Jonathan is a woman of peace. She did not threaten anyone with violence; she did not incite anyone to commit violence or to kill others and her words have not resulted in death, mass murder or any crimes against humanity. We therefore completely reject the baseless charge and assertion that she has called for the killing or slaughter of anyone at any point in time.
“Their threat to take the First Lady to the ICC is not only absurd but it is also nothing but the empty and boastful ranting of a perfidious, desperate, decaying and dying political party and such threat will amount to nothing. The truth is that if anybody is a candidate for the ICC, it is certainly not Dame Patience Jonathan, but rather General Muhammadu Buhari himself.
“We say this because, firstly, he needs to answer questions about his role in the July 29, 1966 coup and the mass murder of about 300 Igbo army officers, including a serving Head of State, that took place that night. Secondly, there are questions to be answered about his role during the pogrom and massacre in northern Nigeria in 1966 in which no less than 100,000 innocent Igbo civilians, including women and children, were slaughtered in cold blood by mobs that were covertly armed and supported by a small handful of junior army officers. Thirdl,y Buhari’s role during the Asaba massacre, in which hundreds of Igbo civilians were murdered for no just cause, still needs to be clarified. It is left to Buhari to clarify these matters and tell us his role in all these events but if these grave allegations are true, they make him a prime candidate for the ICC.
“Another episode in which Buhari has questions to answer is his role in the mass murder of hundreds of people in the northern part of this country, including a number of young youth corpers who were in their prime, by Buhari’s supporters in 2011. This happened after he lost the presidential elections and after he encouraged them to go on the streets to commit violence. That deviant behaviour alone makes him a veritable candidate for the ICC.
“We are, indeed, grateful that a Dutch law firm has, indeed, filed papers to the ICC asking for General Buhari to be forcefully brought to the court to answer questions about those killings in northern Nigeria by his supporters in 2011. The court action is appropriate and vital in light of the remarks credited to General Buhari about a year ago in which, inter alia, he said that if he were to lose the 2015 Presidential election, the ”baboon and the dog would both be soaked in blood”. What this means is that he intends to soak the entire nation in blood in the event that he loses the election on March 28. He has refused to withdraw that statement and as a precursor to the violence he will again unleash on Nigeria after the Presidential election, his supporters have been stoning the convoy of President Jonathan in some parts of the north each time he goes there to campaign.
“It is very clear that General Buhari is a violent man who has the disposition to incite people to commit mass murder and acts of violence. We wish to take this opportunity to make it abundantly clear that if anybody is killed after the 2015 presidential election after Buhari has been defeated, we will hold him accountable and fully responsible and we will ensure that he faces the full wrath of the law. Justice will be brought to him swiftly and expeditiously. We advise General Buhari and his Campaign Organisation to stop threatening the First Lady with the ICC and instead spend their times looking inwards and delivering themselves from their obvious blood-lust and irrational and bestial desire to inflict violence against those who do not agree with them and who they perceive as their enemies.
“On a final note, we would like to refer you to a set of pictures published on the front page of the Leadership Newspaper edition of last Tuesday. As you can see, President Jonathan is the lead figure in both pictures, which were mischievously placed on top of one another.
“In the first Picture, President Jonathan is surrounded by some prominent Yoruba traditional rulers led by His Imperial Majesty, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade Olubuse II. You can see that the staffs of office of the numerous traditional rulers were pointed towards the President as he sat down and whilst they prayed for him.
“It has been brought to our attention that the spokesperson of the APC actually sponsored that advertorial and the contents of it reflect the sheer depravity of that individual’s deep, dark, disrespectful and sinister mind. Under the picture, they wrote; ”You cannot serve God and mammon”. Right below the caption is another picture in which President Jonathan was praying both in Israel and at the Redeemed Camp in Nigeria. The intent and implication of the pictures and the words below each of them are clear. The motive for displaying the pictures in this manner and those words is to bring not only President Jonathan but also our revered Traditional Rulers in the south west into disrepute and opprobrium.
“Indeed, it beats our imagination how anybody in his right senses could equate a legitimate prayer for our President in the court of the Ooni of Ife by a large number of Yoruba traditional rulers, with the worship of mammon! It is insulting, disrespectful and totally unacceptable. We seize this opportunity to issue a stern warning to Lai Mohammed and his party to stop insulting the Traditional Rulers of the south-western part of our country. It was not too long ago that the de facto leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, described the southwest Traditional Rulers in the most uncharitable terms when he said only three of them could be taken seriously.
“We completely reject these insults on our Royal Fathers and we hereby call on the APC leaders to bury their heads in shame and apologise to our Traditional Rulers. We also demand an apology from Lai Muhammed for encouraging the posting of these pictures in this disgraceful manner, organising the whole thing and sponsoring the advert. If they refuse to apologise or refuse to withdraw the advert, then we take it that the APC as a party has become the enemy of every single Traditional Ruler in Yorubaland and the consequence of that will be far reaching and devastating for the fortunes of their party in the coming elections.”
