Making a wish can now land one in trouble in Nigeria, especially if it is a bad wish against political leaders, or so it seems.
Political tension rose in Yola, the Adamawa State capital, yesterday, when the Department of State Services (DSS) quizzed a former governor of the state, Senator Jibrilla Bindow, for convening a meeting where those in attendance wished President Muhammadu Buhari were dead.
Bindow confirmed that he was invited and interrogated by the DSS in Yola yesterday over the leakage of an audio tape of an APC meeting in the state.
This is even as he said he warned some aggrieved party members at the stakeholders’ meeting against making such unguarded statements.
Bindow had convened a stakeholders’ meeting last week on the chances of APC in 2023 in Adamawa State, especially as it bordered on his governorship ambition.
It was reported that the aggrieved APC members could hardly wait for the meeting to start when they started making unguarded utterances.
“Coronavirus ought to have killed this president to save Nigeria from his misrule,” one of them reportedly said
Investigation revealed that someone who was present at the APC meeting recorded the conversations and later leaked the tape.
“There was an intelligence report on an alleged conspiracy against the president at a meeting in Yola and the DSS decided to invite the former governor, who convened the meeting, and others present.
“The audiotape of the session was made available to those invited and they explained the roles they played. A death wish against the president of a country cannot be taken for granted. Those behind it could escalate their motive beyond mere mouthing it.”
Meanwhile, Senator Muhammad Bindow has denied being part of any plot against President Muhammadu Buhari.
Bindow, who spoke through his special adviser on media, Sadiq Abdullateef, shortly after the session with the DSS, said the audiotape in circulation on the meeting was doctored by some mischief-makers.
“Former Adamawa State governor, Senator Muhammad Umar Jibrilla Bindow, was invited to a party meeting because some members of the party were aggrieved about the just concluded primaries, which he attended as an elder of the party.
“It’s worthy of note that there was no programme in the said meeting; he went there and sat and listened to the aggrieved members’ complaints, and there was an unwarranted outburst from some members which he cautioned against. It’s sad that some people are using that outburst with a recording to malign the former governor.
“The said recording was doctored and if you listened to it very well, there are some conversations that were skipped, Senator Bindow cautioned the members making those unwarranted utterances thrice in the meeting and even threatened to walk out.
“Bindow had said, ‘Please this is not right; you don’t wish anybody dead because of political reasons, much less our leader and father, the president. Let’s make progress please, or I am leaving.’
“But because it’s a planned recording to malign and create problems where there is none, his utterances condemning what has been said weren’t even in the circulated recording.
“As far as we are concerned, we were invited to a meeting and things were said in public and Senator Bindow cautioned the people making those utterances and that was it.
“President Muhammadu Buhari is like a father to Bindow and he will never entertain anything as such on the president,” the media aide added.