Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governors on Tuesday at a meeting attended by 2 out of 13 PDP governors condemned last week’s invasion of Akwa Ibom Government House by operatives of Department of State Security Services (DSS).
The governors, under the aegis of PDP Governors Forum, expressed their view after a meeting of the forum held in the Bayelsa State Governor's office, Tuesday morning in Yenagoa.
The PDP governors led by their chairperson and Governor of Ondo State, Mr. Olusegun Mimiko, condemned in strong terms, the alleged invasion of Akwa Ibom State Government House by DSS.
Mimiko, who read the communique, said the invasion was against the spirit and tenets of democratic norms and tradition.
"We insist that the trend must stop henceforth. No democracy survives without a viable opposition in any part of the world, and we must also remember to remind the APC that they are the real beneficiaries of the liberal democratic ethos of the PDP.
"We once more advise the DSS to preoccupy itself with the task of ensuring internal security and desist from daily harassing and intimidating members of the opposition.
"We implore the international community, the civil society organisations and human rights activists to call the All Progressives Party led Federal Government to order.
“And to insist that it respects the well entrenched democratic tradition.
"We all have a duty to prevent what looks to us like a steady slide of this country into a dictatorship," Mimiko said.
Mimiko further said the PDP governors were worried and regarded the reported invasion on Akwa Ibom government as an assault on democracy.
He said that what happened in Akwa Ibom spelt doom and posed a serious danger to the country's fledgling democracy.
He alleged that the action was one of the continuous attempts by the APC-controlled government to stifle the opposition.
Out of the 13 PDP governors in the country, two governors and four deputy governors who are reported to be in the state for the formal declaration of Gov Dickson for a second term were present at the meeting.
The governors were Mimiko and the host, Gov. Seriake Dickson.
Deputy Governors of Delta, Mr Kingsley Otuaro, Abia, Chris Akomas, Ebonyi, Mr Kelechi Igwe and Kogi, and Mr Yomi Awoniyi.
Governors of Enugu, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Cross River, Benue, Ekiti and Taraba states were absent at the meeting and did not send any representatives.