Pantami: FG Should Release Dariye, Nyame From Prison Because They Apologised – Buba Galadima

Buba Galadima, a chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), on Friday, reacted to the presidency’s defense of the embattled Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, who has faced heavy criticism over his past extremist comments.

THE WHISTLER reported that following widespread calls for his resignation, Pantami had claimed that he had renounced his support for terrorists, saying “Some of the comments I made some years ago that are generating controversies now were based on my understanding of religious issues at the time, and I have changed several positions taken in the past based on new evidence and maturity.”

Rising to his defense on Thursday, Senior Special Assistant to the President Muhammadu Buhari, Garba Shehu, said that calls for the minister’s resignation was inappropriate, ill-willed and orchestrated by ICT companies who were plotting his removal through a “cancel campaign.”

He said that the current administration was backing Pantami to carry out his good works in the communications industry.

“The Minister has, rightly, apologized for what he said in the early 2000s. The views were absolutely unacceptable then, and would be equally unacceptable today, were he to repeat them. But he will not repeat them – for he has publicly and permanently condemned his earlier utterances as wrong,” Shehu added.

But Galadima, during a programme on Arise Television, said that if that was the case, the Buhari administration should replicate the same for jailed politicians and other criminals who had apologized for the wrongs they did in the past.

“Just a little bit about Pantami whom the federal government has cleared because they said he has apologized and I said that we should not choose and pick because if anybody who commits an offense apologizes and should be let free…so let the federal government today release Reverend Jolly Nyame , Chief Dariye of Plateau state, they have been jailed and they had remorse in court, why doesn’t the federal government now release them. For those that are being interrogated for theft, they should now be let off the hook if they apologize,” he said.

But he warned that for the government to be effective in fighting corruption and insecurity, it should be resolute and ensure that whoever “commits any of these crimes should face the law”.