The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, has debunked the reports making the rounds in some media that the United States placed him on a ‘terror watch list’ for alleged ties with the late Boko Haram founder, Mohammed Yusuf.
Pantami, an Islamic cleric, also said he has been preaching against the terrorist sect for over 15 years.
Yusuf, founder of the militant Islamist group was killed in 2009 in Nigeria’s North-East. Yusuf’s death gave rise to an unprecedented uprising; carnage, bombings, kidnappings, amongst other crimes even till date, as military forces battle to clear the terrorists out of the entire North-East.
Social media platform, Twitter, was aghast on Monday when the reports published by some news platforms went viral.
While some critics of the minister have dragged him over the unconfirmed reports and allegations, his supporters have since taken to his defence. As of the time of filing this report, the minister’s name, Isa Pantami, topped Twitter trends with over 18,000 tweets.
He stated, “My lectures against the doctrines and all other evil people have been available for over 15 years, including debates that endangered my life against many criminals in Nigeria. If you can’t understand Hausa, get an objective Hausa speaker to translate for you objectively.”
The news platforms did not provide any source of the claim other than citing the “America’s Intelligence Service.”
NewsSpecng could not verify the information; official sources including the US embassy in Nigeria have not responded to enquiries regarding the issue.
Continuing, the minister advised Nigerians who were yet to link their Subscriber Identification Modules with their valid National Identity Numbers to do so before May 6, 2021, adding that the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), was poised to expose criminal elements through the NIN-SIM data linkage.
