Lagos State Governor, Mr Babatunde Fashola (SAN) on Monday spoke on the reported issuance of a travel advisory by the United States to its citizens to avoid visiting certain places in Lagos, maintaining that if indeed the statement was issued, it clearly violated the conventional global obligation on freedom from fear.
The Governor who spoke in an interview with State House Correspondents at the Lagos House, Ikeja added the first poser he would like to raise was whether the travel warning was a US Government release and that if indeed it was, it raises new dimensions in the obligations of nations to secure peace and cooperate with one another.
“First, there is a fundamental freedom that seems to have gone out of our daily discourse. The freedom from fear and this was a freedom that was recognized since 1948 when the Declaration of Rights was being adopted as a global obligation. And as I said until I am certain that the information came from an agency of the United States, I can only speak on the basis of the gravity of that kind of information assuming it was true”, he said.
The Governor maintained that there are channels of communication through which such information can be shared without creating panic or creating fear, adding that: “I think citizens of all nations can be protected without throwing a cat among pigeons”.
Reiterating that he does not know the source of the information, the Governor expressed the hope that whoever was behind it would be more circumspect about how information is shared while ensuring that the intentions are noble.
He maintained that what the country needs at this time is more information in the right hands to the right places to assist security agencies and the government to overcome this difficult period and not about information being thrown into the social media in a way that there is no control or management and creating panic because anyone who does that does not mean well for the nation.
The Governor was flanked at the interview session by the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Lateef Ibirogba, Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Mr Lateef Raji and the Special Adviser on Media, Mr Hakeem Bello.
They think that by continuously embarrassing our country in this manner will divide us in fulfilment of their satanic prophesy. They lie. Nigeria will surely overcome these challenges. It is well Nigeria.
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