By Umaru Fofana
Police yesterday detained the Spokesman of the main opposition All People’s Congress party, Sidi Yayah Tunis.
According to the Inspector General of Police, Ambrose Sovula, Tunis “was invited to report to the police…in connection with some utterances he made that bear some inciting words that have the propensity to undermine state security or national security”.
It relates to an interview he granted Radio Democracy on Monday regarding the state of affairs in the country as seen by his APC party, and the next elections in 2023.
But the IG would not elaborate on exactly what the opposition spokesman had said that was deemed a public order offence.
He said he had been invited to “discuss with the police on what he meant by ‘moving to level three’ of the situation, that they will do this or they will do that”.
The IG said that they had obtained a recording of the radio programme, which would be analysed and discussed with Tunis.
Asked which areas of the interview were deemed incendiary, he said he had not listened to the interview in full but that he had been told it contained “a lot of inciting words that are not good for our fragile peace”. He went on: “So on that ground the police invited him for him to go and clarify what he means by those words”.
The Secretary General of the party, Osman Yansanneh said it was ironical that they had just come out of a meeting with the UN Resident Coordinator on constructive engagement and dialogue for peace in the country “just to learn about the detention of our spokesman.”
He said they did not find anything inciting or amounting to a public order offence in the interview granted by Tunis.
Politico saw him behind bars late yesterday crammed with dozens of other suspects inside the police lockup. He was barefoot and looked dispirited. He said he had arrived at the CID for questioning at 11:00 am and was detained around 3:00 pm after they had obtained statement from him.
Copyright © 2022 Politico (09/02/22)
