April 22, 2021

Ebonyi State governor, Dave Umahi, has called on the Department of State Services (DSS) and Nigeria Police to invite Nigerians who make ‘unsubstantiated statements’ on social media to explain reasons for their comments.

The governor who made this comment during an interview on Channels Television breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily said this is important to prevent increased crime and heating up the polity.

“The level of crimes in the country is as a result of unpatriotic acts of a lot of us. We, leaders, we come out on television and then we speak, indict other regions, we speak against other regions, we pick on the leader of the country and then castigate the leader of the country. There is no patriotism at all.

“The way to prevent this thing is that if you are making unsubstantiated statements on social media, you should be invited by the police or DSS to explain and this is no politics because the country cannot fold our hands and allow people to plunge the it into another war. This is very important,” Umahi said.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) governor noted that these unpatriotic comments are capable of inciting division and might eventually plunge the country into a crisis or lead to war.

“I was told that one of the world wars started with a family quarrel and so if you are making a statement on social media calling it freedom of speech, you must come to the law to substantiate it.

“What I have in the (Ebonyi) state, the communal clash now should have stopped but for the politicians who are making unguarded accusations and statements on social media and then people outside the state will just cash on that and emotions will arise and the problem will continue.”