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Achebe: CDHR faults goverment’s stance
By Dele Moses,
Special
Correspondent, Ilorin
The Committee for the Defence of Human
Rights (CDHR) has criticised the Federal Government’s reaction to the
rejection of a national award by Prof. Chinua Achebe, saying it was the
government and not the literary giant that slapped the country in the face.
Government, through the Special Assistant
to the President on Public Affairs, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode had, while reacting
to the rejection of the award of the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON),
stated that the literary giant slapped the people of the country in the face.
But the CDHR in a statement jointly signed
by its President, Prof Poju Akinyanju and Publicity Secretary, Mr. Funsho
Mojuba, said Achebe was right to reject the award because his reasons were apt
and apposite.
The statement reads in part: “Achebe
did not slap Nigerians, he may have slapped an insensitive Government domiciled
in Nigeria. It is the FG that continually slaps Nigeria with poverty; Poverty
induced death from lack of food and health care, have reached an alarming
proportion.
“It is the FG that slaps Nigerians
with incessant increase in the price of fuel thus making life miserable for
majority of Nigerians and throwing more Nigerians into the unemployment market.
“It is the FG that slaps Nigerians
with pervasive corruption at all levels of governance. Nigeria just received
the dubious honour of being the third most corrupt nation in planet earth, and
the most corrupt oil-bearing nation.
“It is the FG that slaps Nigerians in
the face through increasing loss of freedom by the citizens as evidenced by
assaults on media houses; intolerance of opposing views and arbitrary arrest
of citizens”.
“It is the FG that slaps Nigerians in
the face by subscribing the nation to a re-colonization process. Most of the
activities of Government are designed for it by its imperial masters and for
the benefit not of Nigerians but these foreign masters”.
The committee stated that Achebe’s
rejection of the award highlights the deliberating condition of the people of
the country it said that the world renowned literary giant acted a true
intellectual by rejecting the award adding, “The Nigerian people are one
with Achebe”.
The group advised the government to carry
out genuine introspection and mend its ways as it advised that
“assaulting Achebe and other progressive elements will only worsen the
situation.
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