Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to sack Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami over his past affiliations to teachings of global Jihadists movements of AlQaeda.

It advised the President to expose and boot out all sympathisers of Islamic terror networks in his government “if he truly means to decisively dismantle all the terror cells in existence in Nigeria and especially those who are actively threatening the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

It added: “It is unimaginable that a government that is totally intolerant of divergent opinions and has done quite a lot to use brute force of the armed Police and other security forces to physically crush supporters of such moderate Islamic groups like the Islamic Movement of Nigeria is the same administration that harbours someone who had indeed espoused the teachings of such global terrorism outlaws like the masterminds of AlQaeda global Jihadists movements.

“Ironically, after this same person has been exposed and his past misdeeds made abundantly open, President Muhammadu Buhari has refused to dismiss this self-confessed supporter of AlQaeda. Why did this government rush to classify the self-determination campaigners like the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) as a terrorist group whereas at the most strategic centre of administration the Country has someone who even by his belated admission had previously supported international terrorists?”

#PantamiResignNow gains momentum
The group, while expressing anger over the development, went on: “How does the Nigerian government want decent Countries like the United States of America, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the European Union to have confidence in this same government under whose watch a self- confessed supporter of the teachings of AlQaeda is the minister of Communications and Digital economy?

“Pantami must be dismissed forthwith unless the Muhammadu Buhari administration has now accepted to be a sympathizer of AlQaeda in which case Nigerians should in their numbers pour out on the streets and force the entire Federal government of President Muhammadu Buhari to resign immediately “.

In a statement on Sunday by the National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, HURIWA asked Nigerians not to be deceived into accepting the belated statement of remorse made by the Minister, who had earlier threatened to sue a newspaper that had linked him up to some of the teachings that glorify the global Jihadists movements.