MURIC warns politicians against heating the polity

Ahead of this year’s general elections, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has warned politicians and security agencies against making utterances capable of plunging the country into crisis.

Director of MURIC Prof. Isiaq Akintola said in a statement yesterday that the nation’s political arena became tense from the last week of year 2014 with the Nigerian Police and the Army issuing terse warnings to politicians while President Goodluck Jonathan also threatened to deal with troublemakers during the election period.

The statement said that before the warnings, spokesman of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) Alhaji Lai Mohammed had raised the alarm that security agents were making moves to arrest him and other opposition members.

The statement said: “The Muslim Rights Concern wishes to caution the major dramatis personae (the Presidency, the ruling party, the opposition, the Nigerian Army and the Nigerian Police) on the need to observe decorum, adopt civilised behaviour, respect the rule of law and strictly adhere to the principles of democracy.

These are the only ways to avoid throwing Nigeria into chaos before, during and after the 2015 general elections.

“The Nigerian Police is reminded that it belongs to the Nigerian people and not to any political party. We frown upon ugly incidents in the past in which the police stood akimbo as hooligans attacked members of the opposition or acts of connivance in which policemen protected members of the ruling party as they committed acts of impunity.”