The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami is being criticised by various individuals and groups for the comments he made many years ago in support of extremist groups and and also speaks highly of terrorist network Al Qaeda.
However, the minister recently renounced his comments and claimed he has changed and he is being backed by the presidency.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, says the former Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun case is different from the situation of Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami.
Shehu said this during Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ programme on Friday.
Mrs Adeosun was appointed as the Minister of Finance by President Muhammadu Buhari in November 2015.
In 2018, three years after serving in the President’s cabinet, there was a widespread call for her removal or to resign as Minister when she when a report emerged that she failed to participate in the compulsory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and the NYSC certificated she had tendered when she came into office was forged.
On the contrary, the Presidential spokesman said, “If Pantami had forged a certificate to come into office, the attitude (of the Presidency) would have been different.
“In the second case which is that of Pantami, you are probing the thoughts, what is called ‘McCarthyism’; you search the inner recesses of the minds of individuals, bring out things they have said, or they are about to say, or you think they would say, and use that against them.
“Those people who stand in criticism of a man who has said he had wronged society, he has apologised and changed, and they are not willing to forgive him to move on, they are the ones who are the problem. They are the ones who are deeply intolerant,” Shehu said.
