Hundreds of youths have taken to streets across Kano State to rally in solidarity with the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami, following calls for his sack for renouncing terrorism in the past.
The youths under the aegis of the African Youth Assembly For Peace backed the Federal Government’s stance that the minister’s appointment would not be terminated based on past actions.
The rally which took place at Lodged road to the gate of the Kano State Government House saw a lot of supporters bearing placards with different inscriptions including “Pantami is not a terrorist” “Nigeria needs Pantami“ and “Fighting Cyber Crime is the answer” and the minister’s pictures to show their solidarity.
While Addressing the rally, the Director-General of the African Youth Assembly for Peace, Ali Waliyi, described what is happening to Pantami as the handiwork of the enemies of the country who are not pleased with the linking of SIM numbers to NIN numbers to curb crime and criminality across Nigeria.
“We bear due allegiance to the Federal Republic of Nigeria and we show support to the minister. We as Nigerians believe we are one country and we don’t have any apology to anyone from any part of the world or any part of the country that will come and cause any crises for us. They should allow us to manage our crises amicably.
“Today we are here to tell the whole world that the minister is very clean and a very good citizen of this country. He is a man of repute and a man of integrity. We are aware of his efforts and we are aware of his hard work. We are aware of the effort put by his ministry to link SIM numbers with the National Identification Numbers in order to curb crime and criminality in the country.
“It is on the basis of that that we realise that the enemies of this country are trying to sabotage the efforts of Mr President and sabotage the effort of the minister of communication and the digital economy. As such as Nigerian citizens we say no to that and we stand by Pantami and we stand by Mr. President. We are in support of Pantami and we are in support of Mr President. We are here to show our solidarity and we are here to show our support.
“We say no to enemies of Nigeria, no to enemies of Mr President and no to enemies of Pantami” the leader of the group declared while addressing the rally”, he added.
