Controversial Islamic cleric, Sheihk Ahmad Gumi has warned against removal or sack of embattled Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami, saying Nigeria will surely regret it.
Pressure has been mounted on President Muhammadu Buhari to axe Pantami after his past extremist, radical remarks and fundamentalist views resurfaced on the internet.
Read Also: Isa Pantami Says Forces Against NIN Registration Are Behind For Recent Attacks Against Him
In one of the recordings of him speaking, the minister was heard hailing terrorists and applauding religious extremism.
The embattled Pantami, an Islamic cleric and scholar, renounced the remarks as pressure mounted on him to relinquish his exalted office in the federal government, saying he was too young and immature at the time he offered them, even though some of the remarks were made whilst he was in his ‘30s.
Buhari through his spokesperson, Garba Shehu, said the 48-year-old minister was just being subjected to “cancel culture.”
Speaking about the entire situation during an interview with Roots TV, Gumi said the allegations against the embattled Minister were not true and should be discarded.
He began by saying;
You cannot Islamise the whole world. Jesus Christ came; he could not Christianise the whole world. Nobody can Islamise or Christianise Nigeria.
All his actions, one hundred percent, shows he is not a terrorist. Those who are terrorists are after his life. The Minister should continue. His presence there is fighting the terrorist ideology.
Show me one person he has killed. He has not killed anybody. He has not ordered the killing of anybody. Discard the fake news.
Gumi added;
The man is stabilising a government among a section of youths, which we want them to come and join in nation-building. They should not throw him away. Leave him. He is not a terrorist sympathiser.
And you people are fighting them. No. You should get more people like Pantami and put them in power. It will stabilise. Don’t remove him. You’ll regret.
The development comes as Pantami has just alerted the world that fresh, doctored videos portraying him in “compromising position“, are about to be released to further tarnish his reputation.
In a statement issued on his behalf by his media aide, Uwa Suleiman, Pantami said;
We are in receipt of credible intelligence that the same forces who have been championing a well-coordinated and richly funded campaign against Pantami, are now onto the next stage of their diabolic project.
This time around, the forces of evil are shopping for willing partners as well as their usual avenues to release doctored videos purporting to show the minister in an alleged compromising condition as a way of creating injury on his image.
We are least surprised by this recent move which is a clear intensification of their desperation, having failed in their assault on the personality of the minister, despite their previous efforts.
After concocting lies and half-truths linking the Honourable Minister with terrorism, despite his well-documented stance against Boko Haram and similar groups, these adversaries went to the extent of doctoring a document with capacity to endanger national security.
The minister said he is alerting the public about the latest plot in order to warn the perpetrators of the consequences of their action.
