Gombe Defends Detention Of Govt Critic

• Zubairu Umar says the use of state agents enhances the political standing of any government.

EKO HOT BLOG reports that Umar, Gombe State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, made this disclosure  in an interview with journalists, while reacting to allegations by some lawyers representing Mohammed Yayari, an aide to Senator Danjuma Goje.

Yayari was detained for saying on social media that top party chieftains were leaving the All Progressives Congress in droves.

His lawyers had lamented how the Chief Magistrate, Mohammed Kumo, had decried pressure from ‘the powers that be’ in his ruling saying that he was coerced to deny the defendant bail.

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But the Attorney General said, said, “It is natural. In democracy when you are in control you can use the machinery of government to enhance your political standing. Every project that has been sited anywhere there is politics behind it, there must be a reason.

“It is either because you want to compensate those who supported you or entice those who have not supported you and this purely a political administration, anything the government does it weighs how the consequences will impact the performance of the government.

“Has anybody said anything that the government did, he (chief magistrate Kumo) mentioned that somebody mounted pressure on him. He didn’t say the governor or the state government.”

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