Assassination Comment: Group Petitions IGP, Seeks Festus Keyamo’s Investigation

A human rights organization has called for the interrogation of Festus Keyamo (SAN), the Minister of State for Labour and Employment.

The gorup petitioned the Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, seeking the interrogation of Keyamo over his comments on an assassination attempt on presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi.

Keyamo, who doubles as the official spokesperson for Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the All Progressive Congress (APC) 2023 Presidential Candidate’s Campaign Council, in a statement on Monday, claimed that Obi plans to fake an assassination attempt on himself “and hire Labour Party boys dressed in APC caps and T-shirts to attack some Labour Party offices.”

“It is all part of the ‘U.S Plan’,” Keyamo said.

“It is the first in a series of incendiary actions planned by this ill-prepared but desperate candidate,” he added.

The Advocates for Peoples Rights and Justice in a letter dated and received on September 15, 2022, and signed by its National Coordinator, Victor Giwa, said the organisation as an accredited Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Observer, finds the actions of politicians ahead of the 2023 general elections as capable of heating the polity.

In the letter titled, ‘Request to Invite Festus Keyamo (SAN) for Interrogation and Warning for Comments Capable of Invoking Violence Contrary to the Electoral Act, 2022’, Giwa pleads with the IGP to consider the information and act quickly because the comment was “provocating, tempestuous, and inciting.”

“Consequently, we humbly request that the Honorable Minister be invited to clear himself as regards the content of his comment since it borders on the security of the life of a key contestant in the elections,” he wrote.

“We hope, the politicians play the game according to the rules.”