Assassination: Labour Party asks security chiefs to place Keyamo on terror watch-list

Following the issue of assassination attempt on the life of Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, raised by the Spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, LP has called on Nigeria’s security service chiefs to place Keyamo on the watch-list.

Keyamo, who is also the Minister of State, Labour and Productivity, had alleged in a statement that Obi was planning to execute a fake assassination attempt on his own life by using supporters dressed in the APC caps and T-shirts to attack his party offices.

He had also accused the former Anambra State governor of circulating a video online to disparage the presidential candidate of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

However, in a statement issued Tuesday by the National Publicity Secretary of Labour Party, Abayomi Arabambi, the party described Keyamo’s statement as a “treasonable conduct” that warranted his name being placed on the terror watch list by security agencies.

The statement partly read, “President Muhammadu Buhari must now as a matter of urgency direct the service chiefs to place Festus Keyamo and other APC presidential campaign members and supporters on a security watch list, as they are now a threat to democracy, ahead of the 2023 general elections.

“I call on the Inspector General of Police to urgently commence a comprehensive investigation into Mr. Festus Keyamo’s unlawful and treasonable activities. His conducts are likely to cause a breach of peace and anarchy in our country if this ugly trend is not nipped in the bud and Keyamo made to face possible prosecution in a court of Law.

READ: ‘Plan to assassinate Obi’: What does Keyamo know? Obi’s aide, Nigerians ask

According to the LP national publicity secretary, the APC had become jittery since the Obi’s ‘one million-man’ rallies started recording huge successes across the nation.

He also asserted that the ruling party has started nursing fear of being thrown into the political wilderness.

“LP sees the forced self-confession of the APC about the conspiracy being floated by the APC to assassinate the most popular and supported people’s preferred and loved 2023 Presidential Candidate, as yet another proof of God’s involvement with the Peter Obi candidacy.

“It is also the responsibility of security agencies to ensure that all the candidates are truly secured. The LP is loudly and clearly expressing its condemnation of the criminally-inclined politics the APC is trying to re-introduce into the Nigerian political system.

“Labour party considered this devilish act by the APC presidential spokesman as not only deceitful but a subtle way to gain unmerited sympathy in their bogus attempt at employing crude primitive tactics clandestinely in order to win the 2023 presidential election through fraudulent means.

“Festus Keyamo’s provocative and highly disparaging insinuation against our Presidential candidate would have been ignored with its puerile contents but it is expedient to set the record straight for the benefits of the public and our party members.

“Labour Party wishes to remind Festus Keyamo that Chapter IV of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on Fundamental Rights Section 33(1) states: ‘Every person has a right to life, and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, save in execution of the sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria’,” he stated.