From Okwe Obi, Abuja
The Arewa Youth Assembly has protested against calls for President Bola Tinubu to suspend Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume, over corruption claim.
AYA Speaker, Mohammed Salihu Danlami, in a statement yesterday, described the Arewa United Patriots, as “unregistered and faceless group” sponsored by the opposition to tarnish the image of Akume.
Danlami argued that the President would be alone if he should accede to the clamours of Nigerians to sack his appointees.
He said: “The group in question (Arewa United Patriots) is a faceless group with no history of existence or prior media outings and is only formed to concoct, spread lies, baseless allegations, and character assassinate dedicated and hard-working members of the Tinubu Government like the SGF.
“The SGF, Senator George Akume, is an honest man who believes in transparency and accountability in service and is, therefore, in no way linked to any corruption, bribery or money laundering, but is only committed to serving Nigerians with the highest level of dedication and loyalty. Senator Akume is undoubtedly a key figure with unwavering commitment to the actualisation of President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
“On this note, we call on the general public to disregard such press conferences as they are fake, full of lies and deliberately circulated to cast aspersion and smear the person and good image of the SGF who is a political threat to the opposition.
“Therefore, we call on President Tinubu to disregard the request of the group calling for the suspension of the SGF, instead, we are calling on the relevant security agencies to order an investigation into the activities of this group as they appear to be fraudulent, faceless, and could be contracted to cause chaos and incite violence.
“Moreover, if the President would suspend every member of his cabinet over a request from some faceless group because of an allegation, then the cabinet would be left empty.”