Boko Haram: We only kicked against law on accomplices, not proscription —APC •Let us meet in court – Fani-Kayode

THE brickbats between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and a former chieftain, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, continued on Wednesday with the party explaining the aspect of the law proscribing Boko Haram that it kicked against. In a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party accused the former Minister of Aviation of deliberate distortion of its position to achieve a pre-determined objective. It said, however, that in the true spirit of the party’s belief in dwelling on issues rather than pettiness, it had decided not to engage Fani-Kayode in brickbats but to simply set the record straight for the sake of posterity, thus exposing him for who he allegedly truly was: a Janus-faced, brassy personality who stands for nothing and will fall for anything. On June 9th 2013, the ACN issued a statement in which it said in the opening paragraph: ‘The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has said that the recent proscription order against Boko Haram and Ansaru, desirable as it may be in tackling the terrorist organisations, violates the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by stifling the press and tampering with the fundamental human rights of Nigerians.’ ‘’Any person, especially one who supposedly had the benefit of a sound education, who interprets this statement as a condemnation of the proscription itself is either acting out of deliberate mischief or has failed to take advantage of his good education, perhaps in a desperation to escape justice at all cost. ‘’What the statement means is that in as much as the Federal Government may have done a desirable thing in proscribing the terrorist groups, a section of the proscription order violates the constitution by stifling the press and tampering with the fundamental human rights of Nigerians. ‘’We then went ahead to quote that offensive section of the Proscription Order as Section 5 (1), which prescribes a term of imprisonment of not less than 20 years ‘for any person who knowingly, in any manner, directly or indirectly, solicits or renders support for the commission of an act of terrorism or to a terrorist group.’ APC said it was, therefore, baffling, to say the least, that anyone would still take the statement to mean that APC was against the proscription of Boko Haram. ‘’In line with his shifty and deceitful style, Mr Fani- Kayode, in his rambling response, tried to tone down his earlier statement by saying: ‘I believe strongly that the APC comprises of at least a handful of Boko Haram sympathisers and questionable individuals who have at various times expressed a certain degree of support for Boko Haram’. ‘’But our response to this toned-down version of what he said on television is that it is too late in the day for him to back away from his earlier statement, for which he must apologise or face a court action,’’ it said. Reacting, however, former Aviation Minister, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, asked Alhaji Lai Mohammed, spokesman for Nigeria’s opposition party, APC, to meet him in court instead of joining issues with him on the pages of newspapers. Fani-Kayode wondered if “this so-called spokesman for Nigeria’s opposition party has nothing better to do than to join issues with me on a daily basis?” He said: “I look forward to meeting you in court so that I can prove to the world who and what you and your party really are.” Meanwhile, the former minister has reiterated the fact that he stood by all that he said in his interview with Channels Television on June 30. “I am not shying away from anything that I said in my interview with Channels TV on June 30th and if you think that I am doing so, you are sadly mistaken,” he said. Fani-Kayode alleged that the party was looking for power and imagined what it would do to its perceived enemies if, perchance, it succeeded in getting the power; adding that God would not allow it to get the power. He also noted that Mohammed’s explanations and attempted rationalisations about what he said last year about government’s proscription of Boko Haram and his opposition to it was belated. “It makes no sense. It changes nothing,” Fani-Kayode said.