PDP REVEALS REAL REASON BUHARI WAS INVITED BY ICC

PDP REVEALS REAL REASON BUHARI WAS INVITED BY ICC

By Ifreke Inyang

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has claimed that President Muhammadu Buhari was invited by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to the 20th anniversary of the Rome Statute of the Court, because his administration “has a lot of questions to answer.

This was contained in a statement signed by PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, on Monday.

It was in response to remarks made by Nigeria’s Ambassador to the Netherlands, Oji Ngofa, that Buhari was invited because of the high regard in which Nigeria is held.

“What the Presidency seeks to hide from Nigerians is that the ICC Rome Statute deals directly with critical issues of crime against humanity, which is already prevalent in Nigeria under President Buhari’s watch.

“The PDP said the fact that President Buhari is the only President invited to the event showed that the world is alarmed by the spate of blood-letting, extra-judicial executions, illegal arrests, arbitrary detention and torture going on in Nigeria.

“The party therefore calls on the ICC to take President Buhari to task on the documented abuse of human rights in Nigeria, particularly, the US Department of State 2017 Human Right Report, which catalogued issues of extrajudicial and arbitrary killings; disappearances and arbitrary detentions and torture, particularly in detention facilities in Nigeria under this administration,” the statement read.

The party also asked President Buhari to report and defend himself to the ICC over “documented human right abuses, crime against humanity and killings in Nigeria” under his watch.