{The US and UK issued separate statements, while the EU Ambassador to Nigeria Mr. Michel Arrion spoke in Abuja.}<\/p>\n
The United States of America, in an unusually long statement said it was deeply troubled by Shema\u2019s comments which it said \u201cundermines\u201d the nation\u2019s democratic process.<\/p>\n
It said, \u201cthe rhetorical threat of violence undermines the democratic process and is utterly unacceptable in a democratic society.<\/p>\n
Cameron<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are deeply troubled by Governor Ibrahim Shehu Shema of Katsina State\u2019s recent statements calling for the killing of the \u2018cockroaches of politics.\u2019 The United States reiterates its call upon all Nigerians to refrain from advocating, fomenting, or condoning violence before, during, or after the elections\u201d.<\/p>\n
The US lectured Shema on the provisions of the Nigerian constitution saying, \u201cThe Nigerian Constitution itself states it is the duty of every citizen to \u2018respect the dignity of other citizens and the rights and legitimate interests of citizens to live in unity and harmony.\u2019 Language that threatens or incites violence short-circuits the democratic process.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll Nigerians must be free to voice their opinions and participate in the electoral process without fear of physical retribution.<\/p>\n
Political parties, elected leaders, and candidates for office have a special obligation to uphold these democratic precepts\u201d.<\/p>\n
The US, which stressed its commitment to working with Nigeria to strengthen its democratic institutions in the years to come, added that participants in the electoral process must demonstrate passion for their convictions and beliefs in a manner that showed respect for opposing differences.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Nigeria looks ahead to the February 2015 general elections, the United States strongly supports a free, transparent, credible, inclusive, and non-violent electoral process,\u201d it remarked.<\/p>\n
Similarly, the British High Commission said it was concerned by the reported comments of Governor Shema of Katsina State.<\/p>\n
According to its statement , \u201cThe British Government supports a peaceful, credible and transparent democratic process, in accordance with the stated principles of the Nigerian Constitution.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to make this clear in our engagement with all political actors and parties.<\/p>\n
Briefing the media on activities of the EU in Nigeria and in West Africa, , the Head of Delegation of EU to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Amb Michel Arrion, said that the speech delivered in Hausa by Shema, if true, was certainly the beginning of the hate speech that should not develop.<\/p>\n
According to him, that statement was extremely dangerous and not therefore acceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say it\u2019s really the beginning of something that is a very serious source of concern for us. You know before my posting here in Nigeria I was working in Rwanda. And in Rwanda, in 90 days, they have killed 1 million \u2018cockroaches\u2019 which was the nickname giving to the Tutsis.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo am not sure the people using that kind of language realise what it means, and I want to be really clear on that. If it is confirmed because I don\u2019t, I am sorry to tell you all, I don\u2019t believe everything I read in the press.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we have to be careful and I hope it is not true. And there is no good reason whatsoever to call someone a cockroach. Before Rwanda by the way, I was in Ivory Coast and at that time, there was a party calling the voters of the other party \u2018the electoral cattle.\u2019 So calling human beings cattle is more than an insult if I will say. It\u2019s really denying the human nature of people. So let\u2019s be clear on that please.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis kind of hate speech is absolutely not acceptable in particular in the biggest democracy in Africa; Nigeria after all, you are big country, you are big nation,\u201d Arrion said.<\/p>\n
The EU representative, who called on Nigerians to hold their leaders accountable for whatever statement they made, disclosed that Ministerial Dialogue with Nigeria and ECOWAS would be holding next week Thursday in Abuja as part of the effort towards addressing political and security problems confronting the country and other West African countries.<\/p>\n
He said the summit, which will be hosted by Nigeria\u2019s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amb Aminu Wali, would look at bilateral, regional and international issues.<\/p>\n
Amb. Arrion pointed out that the Italian State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Mario Giro, will be leading the EU delegation to the meeting.<\/p>\n
He stressed that the commission would look at how it could provide financial support to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the deployment of EU Observer Team ahead of the 2015 poll.<\/p>\n
the EU ambassador said, \u201cTechnical and financial assistance will be giving to INEC to support them and EU will be sending observers to the six geo- political zones of the country to monitor the election before and after election\u201d<\/p>\n
The head of EU in the country also restated the commitment of the commission to ending insurgency in Nigeria and called for a regional response towards tackling the menace of terrorists in Nigeria and the entire Gulf of Guinea.<\/p>\n
The Street Journal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{The US and UK issued separate statements, while the EU Ambassador to Nigeria Mr. Michel Arrion spoke in Abuja.} The United States of America, in an unusually long statement said it was deeply troubled by Shema\u2019s comments which it said \u201cundermines\u201d the nation\u2019s democratic process. It said, \u201cthe rhetorical threat of violence undermines the democratic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000055095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-17476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000055095,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17476.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17476.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17476.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17476.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17476.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17476.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000055095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17476"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=17476"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=17476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}