Following allegations that the agency is responsible for financing campaigns of hate against presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari and his family, the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has given a 72 hour ultimatum to the party to retract the statement or face litigation.
Director General of the agency, Dr. Patrick Akpobolokemi issued the ultimatum on Sunday during a press conference in Lagos.
Following allegations that the agency is responsible for financing campaigns of hate against presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari and his family, the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has given a 72 hour ultimatum to the party to retract the statement or face litigation.
Director General of the agency, Dr. Patrick Akpobolokemi issued the ultimatum on Sunday during a press conference in Lagos.
Akpobolokemi told the party to apologise to NIMASA over the statement, even as he stated that the accusation is baseless, malicious and falsehood and one that cannot be back with any evidence.
"NIMASA has decided to give APC 72 hours to retract there statement and offer an apology to NIMASA or the management of NIMASA will talk all necessary and legitimate action against the party"
"I hereby make clear that we are not a political party, we are not into politicking and should not be dragged into conventional politics which is not part of our act", Akpobolokemi stated.
He reiterated that APC is only trying to drag the agency to issues of politicking, urging politicians to do what politics entails and allow NIMASA to carry out its responsibility of safety and security of the nation's maritime domain through relevant laws and its enabling acts.
The Director General said that the agency will follow due process to get the apology adding that,"if the request is not done, we will only use legitimate and lawfully means to seek redress".
Akpobolokemi noted that the statement is a deliberately orchestrated attempt to undermine and rubbish all the performing and strategic institutions of the federal government thus the APC has mounted relentless attack and vicious propaganda all in the name of politics.
He added that, " these unfortunate allegations have mutated overtime culminating in their rather callous and condescending attempts to variously describe NIMASA as the president's ATM and now labeling us as the sponsors of hate campaigns against the APC presidential candidate"
"For the avoidance of doubts, the NIMASA success story which is globally celebrated today is borne out of hard work , visionary leadership and team spirit which cannot be dampened , regardless of the orchestrated attempts to trivialize the giant strides of this administration"
"No amount of smear campaign by the APC or any other body for that matter will divert us from our committed course and vision of bequeathing a robust maritime safety administration to administration to generations unborn"
"It must be echoed for record purposes that NIMASA is not a political party and we are a responsible government agency trying our best to fulfill the mandate setting us up as an organisation"
"We will not therefore be dragged into malicious politicking of our accusers, neither would we be intimated into not parading our achievements nor shy away from our responsibilities", he stated.
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