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Reps Minority Leader Calls For Pantami Removal Over Pro-Terrorism Views
- Pantami lacked the prerequisite to oversee the ministry of communications
Ndudi Elumelu, minority leader of the house of representatives, says Isa Pantami, minister of communications and digital economy, public espousal of violent Jihadi has rendered his position as a high-ranking serving cabinet member untenable.
Ekohotblog reports Elumelu, while moving a point of order during Wednesday’s plenary session, demanded the immediate dismissal of the minister.
Elumelu asked President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the minister over his now-renounced views which espoused the creeds and ideology of terror groups such as Al-Qaeda and Taliban.
Elumelu said the minister should be sacked having admitted to publicly making extreme religious remarks that instigated crisis and led to loss of lives.
He said Pantami lacked the prerequisite to oversee the ministry of communications which controls the database of Nigerians.
The lawmaker joins growing number of Nigerians who have been calling for the minister’s resignation over the pro-Al-Qaeda comments.
In videos from the 2000s, Pantami, who is a known Islamic scholar, was reported to have said while he was against the extremist anti-western ideologies of Boko Haram, he supports some of what Al-Qaeda and Taliban had preached.
But he recanted the views at a recent lecture in Abuja, saying that his position at the time was based on his understanding as a teenager.
“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,” he had said.
“I was young when I made some of the comments; I was in university, some of the comments were made when I was a teenager. I started preaching when I was 13, many scholars and individuals did not understand some of the international events and therefore took some positions based on their understanding, some have come to change their positions later.”
Calls for the minister’s removal, however, continue to heighten while some Nigerians have also asked the Department of State Services (DSS) to probe him.
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