A front line pro democracy group, Save Nigeria Movement (SNM) has said independent investigations it carried out over media reports that the Dunamis Church International arrested anti-Buhari protesters and handed over to Department of State Security Service officials proved otherwise.
Consequently, the CSO said it deposed an affidavit to set the records straight considering the controversy the issue generated.
Speaking to journalists in Abuja on Thursday, the convener of SNM, Rev Solomon Semaka explained that the organisation took up the responsibility to carry out the investigation in accordance with its mandate to ensure that rights of individuals, groups and organisations are maintained.
“In line with our mandate to ensure that human rights and the tenets of democracy are not abused, our organization set out to make findings on the allegations, it turned out that much of what is peddled in the media was premeditated ab initio.
“We took interest in the matter for many reasons, to ascertain the extent of human rights violation of the concerned youths and of course to see to it the Church and her leadership as well as the Department of State Services are given a fair hearing in the public court.
“We found out that indeed facts are been withheld and twisted to give a bad image to the church and the Department of State Security Service by some individuals”
“We have it on good authority that the whole charade was a personal vendetta mission against the Church leadership. We have it on good authority too that some individuals behind the #Buharimustgo protest are angry with the leadership for the Church for not offering them financial support to intensify their campaign against the government.
“But in all fairness, we are all aware of the individual roles played by Pastor Dr Paul Enenche in advocating for social justice in this country. Indeed, the Pastor is a man who speaks truth to the government against insecurity at his own detriment deserves better.
“While other influential men of God choose to preserve their brands and wine with the government, Dr Enenche comes in handy to defend the interest of the masses; in fact, he could be rightly tagged anti –government. W make bold to say that we are disappointed by this campaign of calumny against both the person of Dr Paul and the Church.
“This clarification is not meant to discourage those bent of promoting smear campaign against the church leadership but to guide Nigerians on the path of truth as we seek to entrench democracy”.