By Dipo Olowookere
Federal Government has reacted to claims that it was planning to frame up some highly placed individuals in the country.
On Friday, former President Olusegun Obasanjo alleged that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration was planning to frame him up to allow his arrest and imprisonment.
But reacting to this yesterday, Minister of Information and Culture, Mr Lai Mohammed, said in a statement issued in Lagos that, ”This administration will never engage in a frame-up of innocent citizens. That is neither in the character of President Muhammadu Buhari nor in that of his administration.”
Mr Mohammed said further in the statement issued by his media aide, Mr Segun Adeyemi, that, “Only the guilty should be worried. To paraphrase an African proverb, a man who has no wife cannot lose an inlaw to the cold hands of death.”
According to him, the Buhari Administration will not be distracted by frivolous allegations from any quarter, especially those cleverly choreographed to divert attention from a widely-acclaimed presidential proclamation and to shore up support for a waning and egotistical cause.
The Minister said the administration was too busy trying to clear the mess of 16 years and build on its unprecedented achievements over the past three years to waste its energy and time on framing up anyone or dwelling on issues that are not grounded in fact.
Mr Mohammed said the unprecedented achievements of the Buhari administration were also enough to cause sleepless nights, with the attendant symptoms that include phantasm, for those who had better opportunities to make the country great but floundered on the altar of narcissism.
”The administration is also strongly committed to the tenets of democracy, including freedom of speech and the right to dissent. But we understand that those who, in their time, were untethered to those principles would find it hard to believe,” Mr Mohammed said.
The Minister said it was curious that the frame-up and witch-hunt allegations came a day after a major presidential proclamation reversing some past acts of injustice was made, to the relief and acclamation of a long-expectant nation.
”Apparently, the impact of this proclamation was too much to bear by those who, through acts of omission or commission, helped to deepen the wounds inflicted by the blow of injustice that followed an election that was widely acclaimed to be free, fair and credible, hence they felt the need for a red herring that will distract the nation.
”Added to that is the frustration brought about by the fact that the contraption they have so much hyped as a freeway to power has failed to gain traction. Faced with this double tragedy, even the strongest of men may begin to succumb to a figment of their imagination. They may start crying wolf where there is none,” he said.
