Nigerians have called on the Federal Government to release the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, Sheikh Ibrahim El Zakzaky, so as to put a stop to the sum of N3.5 million allegedly being used to feed him monthly.
\nThis call came in reaction to a video, showing Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, alleging that the Federal Government spends N3.5 million on feeding El Zakzaky every month.
\nThe video which was shared last Wednesday has been trending on Twitter, with Twitter users sharing their opinion about the claim of the minister.
\n\u201cIt costs the Nigeria in government N3.5m\/month to feed ElZakzaky.\u201d \u2013 Lai Mohammed.
\n3.5million \u00d7 12 months = N42m
\nHe was arrested in 2015, let\u2019s say they\u2019ve been feeding him for three years.
\n3.5m \u00d7 36 months: N126m.
\nInstead of obeying court orders, Nigerian government is wasting money to keep him, very smart.
\n\u201cIt makes no sense to continue incurring that cost instead of respecting the order given by Justice Gabriel Kolawole and releasing the man.\u201d pic.twitter.com\/tewlHnHDaE
\n\u2014 Igala_King (@I_Am_Ilemona) November 8, 2018
\n\u201cSo, I saw Lai Mohammed during an interview saying @MBuhari spends 3.5 million in feeding El-zakzaky monthly.
\nPlease are they feeding the man with gold rice and diamond beef? They re keeping him in custody as their leakage for siphoning funds.\u201d
\nBuhari\u2019s government and daylight robbery pic.twitter.com\/hya6VoH3lu
\n\u2014 Zain Ameen (@zinadabo1)
\n\u201cIt costs the Nigerian government N3.5million per month to feed ElZakzaky\u201d ~ Lai Mohammed pic.twitter.com\/7sS9l4ZV5O
\n\u2014 V|#BringBackOurGirls (@TheVicmoss)
\nLai Mohammed says they spend N3.5million to feed El Zakzaky. If you are not going to release him as court ordered because he is a threat to security why feed him with N3.5M monthly when there are citizens who are no threat to security that are dying of Hunger?
\nMeanwhile, outgoing British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Paul Arkwright, yesterday insisted that both the Shi\u2019ite and security agencies must respect the rule of law in the country. Arkwright stated this during his last media engagement with journalists in Abuja to wrap up the visit of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.
\nResponding to a question on the Shi\u2019ite, security forces clashes, Arkwright said he does not advise the Nigerian government. Arkwright however said he has his views and he had made them known. \u201cI don\u2019t give advice to the Nigerian government.
\nWhat I said on the question of the IMN in the past, and I am happy to repeat it, is that just as the IMN must obey the rule of law by peaceful demonstration and right to demonstrate peacefully, peacefully is the key word there.
\n\u201cSo, of course, it is important for the security forces in Nigeria also to respect the rule of law,\u201d Arkwright said. On the recent clashes between the Shi\u2019ite and security forces in Abuja,
\nArkwright said it was very unfortunate that it happened. He added that since the government has said it is investigating the incidence, he was not going to rush to judgement about how to apportion blame on one side or the other.
\n\u201cBut clearly, these were serious incidence and I do hope that the independent report that concerns the government analysis of that results to recommendations which the government will follow up.
\nBut until that report is out, it is very difficult for me to comment on it,\u201d Arkwright added. Recalling his three years tour of duty in Nigeria, Arkwright said his main challenge was how to understand what was going on in the country.
\nArkwright said he visited 30 out of the 36 states in the country, saying that his main impression is about the diversity of the country, the culture, experience and the wonderful people he met all over Nigeria, regardless of where the came from.
\nOn the business side of the royal visit of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, the High Commissioner said Prince Charles was more interested in sustainable investment in Nigeria.
\nHe recalled the recent visit of the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, which he said, was a ministerial visit to talk about business opportunities in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigerians have called on the Federal Government to release the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, Sheikh Ibrahim El Zakzaky, so as to put a stop to the sum of N3.5 million allegedly being used to feed him monthly. This call came in reaction to a video, showing Minister of Information and Culture, Lai […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":189513,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=189509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/189513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=189509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=189509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=189509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}