Thailand Rice Mill Collapse: ‘Sack, Prosecute Ogbeh, Lai Mohammed For Lies’

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to sack and prosecution of the Ministers of Agriculture and Rural Development, and that of Information, Mr. Audu Ogbeh, and Lai Mohammed, respectively, for lying to the public.

In a statement on Thursday obtained by THE WHISTLER, National Coordinator of HURIWA, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and National Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, based the call on the alleged false claim of the agriculture minister last Friday that rice mills in Thailand had collapsed due to non-importation of rice from that country, while Lai Mohammed claimed on February 27 that 100 Nigerian Air Force aircrafts had been deployed in search of the missing Dapchi girls.

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According to the duo, the president needs to fire the ministers as they are “wilfully being economical with the truth in the discharge of their public functions thereby polluting the innocent minds of Nigerian Children even as disseminating false information violates the criminal code Act of Nigeria”.

They warned that not acting on the falsehood could erode national ethics and twist the impressionistic minds of Nigerian children to believe that deliberate spreading of alleged falsehoods has no consequences.

“We believe that Mr. President must suspend the Agriculture Minister pending further timely investigation and to order his sack eventually if contrary opinions alleging that he lied are proven as truth. The Nigerian law book even has legal sanction for providing false information and since the law is not a respecter of status or a class, the minister(s) of Agriculture and information must be made to face the consequences of wilful misinformation.

“The current President has claimed to be a man of honesty and so Nigerians are disappointed that his cabinet members have lied to Nigerians in not less than 10,000 times documented in media reports with the current controversy involving the Agriculture and Information Ministers being the most disgraceful acts of alleged betrayal of truth and public trust and amounts to criminal violation. Section “125A subsection (1)” of the criminal code, affirms that: Any individual who gives any information which he knows or believes to be false, to any person employed in the public service with the intention of causing such person to do or omit to do anything which such person ought not to do or ought not to omit to do if the true facts concerning the information given were known to such person; or (b) to exercise or use his lawful powers as a person employed in the public service to the injury or annoyance of any other person, is guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment for one year,” the group said.

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