The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has said the detention of leader of Islamic Movement of Nigeria, Sheikh Ibraheem el-Zakzaky, was \u201cpurely a criminal matter, which is\u00a0being handled by a court of competent jurisdiction.\u201d
\nThe Minister said while the government accepted constructive criticism\u00a0from any quarter, it \u201crejects any attempt to sow the seed of mistrust\u00a0among the various religious groups in the country.\u201d
\nMohammed, on behalf of the Buhari regime, responded to a recent\u00a0placement of Nigeria and six other countries on a special watchlist of states that engage in, or tolerate, \u201cthe severe violation of religious freedom.\u201d
\nThe Federal Government yesterday rejected the designation, describing it as \u201cmisleading.\u201d
\nAccording to the government, the United States \u201cfell for the antics of the\u00a0discontented and the unpatriotic few\u201d who will not hesitate to hang\u00a0Nigeria out to dry on the altar of their inordinate ambition and their\u00a0sheer animosity towards the regime of the President, Major General Muhammdu Buhari (retd.).
\nThe Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, in a statement issued in Abuja, said the deliberate effort to give religious coloration to the\u00a0farmer-herder clashes and, in particular, the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East, had undoubtedly helped to mislead the US.
\nWhile describing the \u201ciniquitous tag\u201d as stemming from \u201can orchestrated narrative that has long been discredited,\u201d he said the good people of Nigeria enjoy unfettered freedom to practise their religion.
\nMohammed blamed the tag on \u201cfailed politicians and disgruntled elements \u2014 some of them supposedly respected leaders \u2014 for latching on to religion as their trump card, especially in the run up to the 2019 general elections.
\nHe said it was \u201cunfortunate that the US fell for the antics of the discontented and the unpatriotic\u201d few who will not h esitate to hang Nigeria out to dry on the altar of their in ordinate ambition and their sheer animosity towards the Buhari regime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has said the detention of leader of Islamic Movement of Nigeria, Sheikh Ibraheem el-Zakzaky, was \u201cpurely a criminal matter, which is\u00a0being handled by a court of competent jurisdiction.\u201d The Minister said while the government accepted constructive criticism\u00a0from any quarter, it \u201crejects any attempt to sow the seed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":218239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223096","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=223096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/218239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=223096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=223096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=223096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}