Minister Pantami Should Resign

KINGSLEY MOGHALU

I have refrained so far from commenting on the #Pantami controversy. From all the information now available in the public domain, here is my position: anyone can make a mistake, and has the right to recant from it. But when the evidence shows that a serving Minister of Nigeria has expressed open support for global terrorist groups, he should never have scaled the vetting process and been approved for that office. 

The implication of the timing of Pantami’s recanting of his views now is that he has been serving as a Minister while presumably still harboring those views. His disagreement with Boko Haram does not absolve him of, at the very least moral culpability for supporting Al Qaeda and the Taliban. 

For this reason, Pantami should not continue to serve as a Minister. For him to remain in his position, and for the Presidency of Nigeria to support this, is to tell Nigerians that we have two sets of standards from the very same Government, one for the likes of former Finance, Minister Kemi Adeosun, who had to resign for a wrongdoing in her past, and another for Pantami. 

This position of the Presidency undermines public accountability, as well as Nigeria’s struggle against terrorism.

– Prof Kingsley Moghalu is a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and a Presidential Candidate in the 2019 General Election.