The Presidential candidate of the Peoples democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has condemned the invasion on Sunday night of the Daily Trust offices in Abuja and Maiduguri by military authorities.
Atiku in a statement by his Media Adviser, Paul Ibe, on Monday said he was alarmed over the military invasion of the newspaper organisation and the arrest of its journalists.
According to him, the “invasion is a travesty, the like of which the nation had not seen since the days of military rule.”
Atiku said, “The particular use of heavily armed soldiers also shows the abuse of scarce resources which have exacerbated the insecurity currently plaguing Nigeria.
“Our soldiers should not be used to target law-abiding citizens. A dutiful and prudent commander-in-chief should rather deploy them to either the North-East or the Zamfara-Katsina axis, especially after the governors of both states held their New Year’s Day conferences bemoaning the breakdown of law and order in their respective states.”
He added, “If the government has issues with the Media Trust Limited, it should bring charges against it in a court of competent jurisdiction or the Nigeria Press Council, the statutory body that governs ethical standards in the Nigerian press.”
