President aspirant Atiku Abubakar has called out the Federal Government for what he has described as the curtailing of the constitutional rights of Nigerians.
The Federal Government had on Saturday announced the enforcement of an executive order placing 50 high profile people on a watchlist and restricting them from travelling.
Punch reports that Atiku has in a statement said the move is to intimidate the opposition ahead of the 2019 elections.
He said:
We must be unequivocal in saying that we abhor any act of criminality, financially or otherwise, but the rule of law must be our guide at all times or society will descend into anarchy.
Thus, we find it most undemocratic that in a nation governed by the rule of law, a President who swore an oath to abide by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, does this.
If past events are to be the judge, these 50 individuals will conveniently be critics and opponents of the Buhari administration.
This is nothing short of intimidation ahead of the 2019 elections. This is what the Buhari administration did in Osun where they froze the accounts of the Adeleke family and then illegally and clandestinely paid N16.7bn to the Osun State Government to facilitate the daylight electoral robbery.
The Nigerian constitution guarantees every Nigerian citizen freedom of movement and freedom of association
If the Buhari administration wants to curtail the rights of Nigerians, then it must go to court and obtain a court order. Anything short of this is unconstitutional and extrajudicial.
This sudden dictatorial act brings to mind President Buhari’s comments for which he was condemned by the international community and by the generality of Nigerians.
While delivering an address at the annual general conference of the Nigerian Bar Association on August 26, 2018, President Buhari has said ‘where national security and public interest are threatened or there is a likelihood of their being threatened, the individual rights of those allegedly responsible must take second place, in favour of the greater good of society.’
That was not only a faulty interpretation of the constitution, the statement also betrays the dictatorial and authoritarian mindset of President Buhari because only he gets to decide who and what threatens national security.