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Tag: protests

  • ‘Unity list’ sparks protests

    ‘Unity list’ sparks protests

    The ‘unity list’ containing the names of preferred candidates for all the 21 positions available for contest yesterday sparked protests at the convention venue.

    One of the chairmanship candidates, Chief Raymond Dokpesi , protested the circulation of the list to delegates.

    Speaking with journalists while voting was ongoing, Dokpesi said he complained to the chairman of the convention planning committee, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State.

    The media mogul said he also complained to the former governor of Benue State, Mr. Gabriel Suswam who was one of the organizers of the convention.

    According to him, both Okowa and Suswam admitted seeing the controversial list, but that they could not do anything about it.

    Dokpesi vowed to explore available internal conflict resolution avenues to seek redress but he was silent on whether he would challenge the alleged imposition in court.

  • Protests, anger rock PDP ahead Dec. 9 convention

    Protests, anger rock PDP ahead Dec. 9 convention

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) remains unsettled as it heads for its December 9 convention.

    National chairman aspirant Prof. Tunde Adeniran has kicked against the list of panelists to conduct the ward delegates’ election ahead of the convention. He has petitioned the leadership.

    The party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting has been fixed for Abuja to ratify the list, among other decisions on the convention.

    Adeniran said many members of the committee are sympathisers and supporters of Prince Uche Secondus, another chairmanship candidate.

    In the Southwest, the faction led by Chief Makanjuola Ogundipe is laying claim to legitimacy. The leadership recognises Dr. Eddy Olafeso as the Vice Chairman (Southwest). Makanjuola is threatening a law suit should his faction be denied participation at the convention.

    In Oyo State, a meeting on Sunday to settle the differences between the two factions on Sunday broke up in disagreement.

    The director general of Adeniran’s Campaign Organisation, Alhaji Shehu Gabam, said the peace accord entered into by the eight chairmanship aspirants is threatened.

    ”A particular state has members on that list and some of  them are the leading campaigners for Prince Uche Secondus. We as campaign organisation were not consulted to bring one or two persons and I am sure other aspirants were not consulted too.

    “It is an indirect way of short-changing other aspirants. The spirit behind the MoU we signed has been violated, not by the aspirants but by the party managers,” Gabam said.

    The Adeniran camp mentioned Senator George Sekibo, Mr. Austin Opara, ThanGod Danagogo, Chief Kenneth Ubani Emeka Ihedioha as some of the Secondus loyalists on the list.

    The Adeniran camp said: “Now you have just one chairmanship aspirant having his men deeply entrenched in a system that would determine how the delegates will emerge.

    “The party created the division among the aspirants. The party should provide equal base for all aspirants and I want to say that we disagree with the composition of this list.”

    Adeniran urged the party leadership to shun impunity and imposition of candidates, saying PDP must learn from past mistakes.

    The camp yesterday rejected the call by the Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose for shadow primary elections for aspirants from the South West, saying the governor had already taken sides.

    The Caretaker Committee of the PDP said: “We have received a petition written by Prof Adeniran on the matter and the Caretaker Committee will meet to discuss the petition this week.”

    Ogundipe told reporters that the faction remained the authentic executive in the zone based on a subsisting court judgment.

    Ogundipe said the continued recognition of Olafeso as Vice Chairman (Southwest) ran foul of the law as there had been no superior order to nullify the subsisting Abuja court judgment.

    “We are the authentic Southwest zonal executive of the PDP, based on a subsisting court judgment and we want the party to accord us the due recognition.

    “Any other group parading themselves as exco from the zone is committing an illegality as there has been no better judgement to nullify the court judgement affirming us as the authentic executive.

    “Moreso, the subsisting court order restrained Olafeso and his group from participating in the Dec. 9 national convention.

    “We do not want to constitute any problem to the convention and that is why we are saying the party should operate in accordance with law and allow us to present delegates from the zone.

    “In the event that we are excluded, just as we were at the non-elective convention in Port-Harcourt, we shall take the necessary legal action, and that will affect the party in the long run,” he said.

    Ogundipe said the Supreme Court judgment affirming Sen. Ahmed Makarfi as Caretaker Chairman did not nullify the leadership of his faction in the zone.

    He urged all stakeholders to abide by the rule of law in order not to jeopardise the progress of the party.

    Ogundipe cleared Chief Olabode George of any involvement in the leadership impasse in the zone.

    He said an all-encompassing meeting of stakeholders in the zone, including national chairmanship aspirants, would soon hold, to decide on a united position of the zone to the convention.

    Olafeso, in a statement yesterday said the Southwest PDP did not micro zone the chairman’s post.

    He denied that the Southwest executive at its last meeting with stakeholders directed that national chairman aspirant must come from a particular state.

    “This is patently false as no such decision was taken. We only zoned other offices that were zoned to the Southwest among all the states in the region and this action is traditional.

    “The position of national chairman and deputy national chairman is zoned to the southern states and, as such is beyond the scope of the South West zone to unilaterally adjudicate on. We declare that all those gentlemen that have signified their intentions to contest for those positions remain at liberty to continue to prosecute their ambitions without hindrance.”

    The attempt to resolve the crisis between the two factions in Oyo State failed at the weekend.

    Senator Rashidi Ladoja called a parley in his home on Sunday but it ended in a stalemate as the faction led by Seyi Makinde, Hon. Mulikat Akande-Adeola, Alhaji Hazeem Gbolarumi and Senator Hosea Agboola rejected the terms of truce.

    At the meeting, the representatives of the Makinde faction – Akande-Adeola, Agboola and Hon. Kehinde Ayoola- rejected the offer of a position for Akande-Adeola and Agboola to appease the faction.

    The faction, it was learnt, insisted on harmonisation that will see both factions have almost equal number of slots in the State Executive.

    The factions held parallel congresses on November 4.

    The National Caretaker Committee invited Ladoja for a resolution. Ladoja was said to have promised the committee that he would resolve the crisis.  His promise made the national leadership to stop its intervention. The committee also considered the fact that both factions accepted the former governor as the leader.

    At the Sunday meeting were also Sen. Femi Lanlehin, Chief Yemi Aderibigbe and Sen.  Ayo Adeseun from the Ladoja faction.

    The meeting, which lasted for over two hours, failed to resolve the problem, with each camp not ready to shift grounds.

    It was learnt that Makinde also rejected the two slots already given to him, saying he should have been allowed to present his own candidates.

     

  • Kaduna condemns use of pupils for protests

    Kaduna condemns use of pupils for protests

    The Kaduna State government has condemned the use of primary school pupils for protests by teachers who failed the competency test. It vowed not to tolerate the reckless endangerment of minors by adults.

    A statement by Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s spokesman, Samuel Aruwan, lamented that the children, who are victims of bad teachers, are now being used as cannon-fodder by the same teachers. It vowed to take legal measures to punish the wrongdoers.

    The statement described as callous and despicable, the act of involving children in illegal, politically-inspired demonstration.

    The statement read: “The Kaduna State government has received reports of primary school pupils being pushed to the streets, by their unqualified teachers, for illegal protests.

    “The government condemns this wanton disregard for the life and safety of pupils put in care of these unqualified teachers. It is grievous enough that bad teachers have been allowed to imperil the educational future of these children. But for these same teachers to endanger the children by using them to block and lie on highways, illustrates a high level of irresponsibility that no law-governed society can accept.

    “These children are not union members; our pupils are the victims of bad teachers who evidently do not mind making these children cannon-fodder for their desperation. Exposing minors to hazards, and endangering their life and limbs shows that some teachers want to jeopardise the present and future of these children.

    “These irresponsible actions, by these unqualified teachers, at the behest of their union, affront both morality and the law, including the Penal Code and the Young Persons’ Law. Those involved will bear the consequences.

    “The government, hereby, warns everyone to desist from illegal and irresponsible acts. Sound education is not a matter of sentiment. Parents who send their children to public schools have a right to expect decent tuition for their wards. Being poor should not mean that the prospects of their children should be truncated.

    “Nobody will be allowed to play politics with the future of our children, their education and their safety.

    “Government urges parents to be vigilant, report to the relevant authorities any attempt to use their children to threaten law and order.”

     

  • Oribanwa community protests one year blackout

    Electricity consumers in Oribanwa community in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos State have protested the one-year power outage in the area.

    The residents, who are mostly landlords, told The Nation that they have been in darkness for more than a year, a development which has threatened the peace in the area.

    Spokesman of the community, Mr. George Egbom, in an interview with The Nation, said the residents had been living in hopelessness and despair since 2016 when the problem started, and efforts and reports to get the Eko Electricity Distribution Company (Eko DisCo) to intervene were fruitless.

    According to Egbom, officials of the undertaking area of the utility visited the community once and said the transformer that fed the residents had malfunctioned. We even pledged to contribute money to repair the transformer but the officials said it would be useless to repair the facility as it would not last long after repairs. They said the community requires a new transformer. This has been our dilemma since 2016, he added.

    Egbom said: “We the residents of this community have been sleeping in darkness. We don’t have light to be able to enjoy things that make life worthwhile. We cannot watch television; iron our clothes; put on fan or air-conditioner and keep foodstuffs in the freezers or refrigerators due to absence of electricity in the area.

    “Even security aspect of it is frightening. You know with electricity, thieves and people with criminal intentions are scared to carry out their acts. Therefore, we don’t enjoy night life as residents go to bed early for fear of the unknown.

    “An average resident here lives in fear as armed robbers and other criminals prowl the community. Power supply is in dire state in the community, a development, which has made residents to resign to fate.

    “We have complained to the Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC), the firm that is in charge of provision of electricity to the community and other areas in the state.

    “Besides, members have complained to the Undertaking Unit of the area.  Instead of fixing the problem, they kept on promising us. They said the power outage was caused by a faulty transformer in the area.  They had earlier promised to repair the transformer, they later changed their mind it has gone beyond repair that we need a new transformer. Repairing the transformer amounts to a waste of time, they said, adding that it would be better for the community to have a new transformer.”

    Egbom said an adjacent community, Ogunfayo, which is few meters from Oribanwa enjoys light, adding that Oribanwa’s situation is worrisome.

  • Edo warns against sponsored pensioners’ protests

    Edo State government has warned that it will no longer fold its arms while mischief makers instigate pensioners into embarking on needless and stage-managed protests.

    It said they do these to portray it bad and undermine efforts at resolving the pension issue.

    In a statement by the Head of Service, Mrs Gladys Idahor, the government said it was not only committed to clearing the backlog of pension arrears, but also instituting a new regime where retirees’ entitlements were not delayed.

    According to Idahor, not less than N6.2billion had  been paid to retirees between January and September, explaining that the protest on Monday was an orchestration by disgruntled elements and their political allies designed to undermine the effort of the government to resolve the pension issue.

    She said: “The government will henceforth prevent miscreants, who under the guise of agitating for pension payment, disrupt law and order, particularly when there is sufficient evidence showing that they are being sponsored by anti-development agents and mischievous members of the opposition, who have refused to accept the verdict of the people.”

    Idahor added: “Governor Obaseki, who is vast in pension matters, having served as a member of the presidential task force, which established the new pension order, has always been very sympathetic to the plight of pensioners. Hence he made a commitment during the presentation of the 2017 budget to resolve the problems of pensioners in Edo State in a sustainable manner.”

  • Russia protests: Hundreds detained at opposition rallies

    Hundreds of people have been detained at anti-corruption rallies in Moscow and St Petersburg.

    Riot police in central Moscow were picking protesters out of the crowd at random, a BBC correspondent at the demonstration has said.

    Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was detained at his home ahead of the protests, according to his wife.

    Thousands of supporters have heeded his call to take to the streets of Moscow and other Russian cities.

    OVD-Info, an independent NGO, told Russian media that 600 people had been detained at the Moscow protest.

    Police in Moscow say about 5,000 took part in the demonstration there, Interfax news agency reports.

    Russia’s interior ministry says that about 3,500 people attended the protest in St Petersburg, and 500 were detained.

    “Alexei [Navalny] has been arrested in the entrance to our block of flats,” Yuliya Navalnaya wrote on Twitter, ahead of the demonstration.

    Mr Navalny, who intends to stand for the Russian presidency next year, had been due to attend the unauthorised rally in central Moscow.

    This was a peculiar protest.

    At first it was hard to tell who was taking part. Tverskaya Street was full of families marking Russia Day with entertainers in historical costumes.

     

  • Ogun community protests poor power supply, high tariff

    Residents of Ado-Odo Community Development Association, in Ado- Odo Local Council Development Area (LCDA) of Ogun State have protested what they described as unjustifiable poor power supply in the area.

    The peaceful protest, which was held at the head office of the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC), Ring Road Ibadan, was embarked upon by community leaders and members of the community.

    The protesters said the current economic hardship experienced in the country is being compounded by epileptic power supply, as many small businesses in the area have been crippled due to lack of electricity supply.

    They claimed that the tariff, which is largely based on estimation, is unjustifiable as it is not commensurate with services rendered.

    Speaking on behalf of the community, the chairman of community development association for power distribution in Ado-Odo, Mr. Abayomi Aina, said the company has not been fair to residents of the community in terms of power supply.

    He said: “We are here to protest the poor power supply in our area. The manager in our local government, Mrs. Falusi purposely drops our light without justifiable reason.

    “We hardly have light a day in a week. When we complained about the abnormality, the manager becomes angry. As a result of this poor power supply, our cables are always stolen. The bills they bring to our people are always outrageous.

    “We have severally presented our case to the IBEDC office in Sango Ota but nothing was done about it. We want you to come to our rescue for our people to enjoy more power supply. We are ready to pay if they give us light.”

  • NULGE begins nationwide protests over autonomy

    NULGE begins nationwide protests over autonomy

    The National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has begun its nationwide protests to drum up support for local government autonomy. The union has scheduled a rally in each of the six geo-political zones and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

    To NULGE, the protests are a subtle advocacy to create awareness and achieve local government autonomy.

    NULGE, an advocate of local government autonomy, said  it was imperative for it to take the protests to the doorstep of the Houses of Assembly, which are critical to  constitution amendment.

    During the Seventh National Assembly, many state assemblies voted against local government autonomy. The proposal for local government autonomy lapsed since two-thirds of the 36 states did not endorse it.

    NULGE President, Ibrahim Kahleel, said the union began the protest in Nasarawa State in the Northcentral Zone last week.

    He said the advocacy became necessary to ensure that the local governments are politically, financially and administratively autonomous in line with global standard practice.

    Khaleel said the campaign, through the protest, had become one of the most viable options for Nigerians, especially the local government workers, to draw attention to what could be described as the re-colonisation of the people.

    “This rally is expected to end with a meeting with the members of Lagos State House of Assembly, where the union will present its position and make submission to the Speaker. The union will be canvassing major amendments to the constitution, which the union believes will rescue the local government from the state governors and underdevelopment.

    “NULGE wants all the contradictory provisions of the 1999 constitution (as amended) that allow for the confusion and manipulation of local government system by state governments erased,” he said.

    He said the union would insist on strict observance of the provision of Section 7, especially the provisions on elected councils.

    He said: “The constitution should be reviewed such that a provision caters for structure, functions, composition, establishment, funding, status and other matters that affect local governments, rather than delegating it to the state governments or Houses of Assembly.”

    He urged President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in the realisation of local government autonomy.

    According to him, one of the demands at the United Nations (UN) meeting was that the local governments across the world be made to be autonomous in line with the democratic principles.

    He said: ‘’Therefore, we have agreed to protest across the six geopolitical zones at the designated centres.

    ”Those other provisions that contradict full autonomy should be expunged from the constitution to avoid the serious contradictions. For instance, the structure, finance, establishment, composition and functions of LGAs should not be vested in the state governments or state Houses of Assembly, but in the Constitution in view of Section 5 that proposes vesting executive powers of the local government council in the chairman.

    “The Constitutional provision on the existence and functions of the State Independent Electoral Commission should be expunged completely in the 1999 constitution because they have become the instruments of anti-democratic practices by state governments,’’ hr added.

  • Not a word against pro-Buhari protests

    Not a word against pro-Buhari protests

    IN the build-up to the February 6 ‘One Voice’ protest organised and recanted by popular musician, Innocent Idibia, aka Tuface, the police and the Department of State Service (DSS) in the two target cities of Lagos and Abuja were anxious to deflate the exercise. The law enforcement agency and the secret service profusely quoted what they believed to be the law and the constitution guiding public protests in their attempts to foil the marches. Legal experts did not think the authorities were right, but both the police and the DSS were naturally not disinclined to forswearing their habitual antidemocratic pastime. Apart from indulging in the occasional vacillation characteristic of imperious government agencies, the two security agencies appeared to put pressure on Mr Idibia until he caved in and dissociated himself from the protest.
    Explaining his climb-down a day before the protest was supposed to take off, Mr Idibia had whined: “…In line with the commitment of ‘One Voice’ Nigeria to ensure a peaceful and impactful protest, the 2face Foundation and partners engaged with the security agencies to resolve all major security concerns, but treacherous gaps remain that we are unwilling to ignore. The risk of hijack by various political and sundry interests’ intent on using the platform to drive agendas that we as the 2Face Foundation are not aligned with and therefore exposing protesters to high levels of danger is the main reason 2baba regretfully had to withdraw himself from the march. He has refused to inadvertently present a platform for mischief makers to exploit. 2baba would like to express his great regret over these circumstances to everyone who feels disappointed. However, he hopes they will agree that as he said in the video announcing the development; ‘no protest is worth the blood of any Nigerian.”
    It was clear the security agencies had won the psychological warfare. For not only did Mr Idibia inadvertently take the shine off the ‘One Voice’ protest, declining to lend it his enormous goodwill, he also deprived what was shaping up to be a movement his contagious influence as a popular musician and youth mobiliser. The protest nevertheless held in both Abuja and Lagos, but it was a shadow of what was anticipated. The police surprisingly behaved professionally towards the marchers, but the expected crowd thought capable of giving the marches some respectability and resonance simply did not materialise. Indeed, the valiant and honest attempt by civil rights lawyers and other legal experts to draw attention to the constitutionality of protests failed to prevent the thinning of the crowds in both cities.
    Almost immediately after the ‘One Voice’ protest was conceived, pro-Buhari groups served notice of their own counteraction, one at a future date to enable proper planning, and the other simultaneously with the ‘One Voice’ marches. The country waited to see what the approach of the security agencies to the pro-Buhari protesters would be, considering how intolerant and remorseless they were against what they regarded as the anti-Buhari protests. But either because they seemed persuaded that a structural and attitudinal shift had occurred in the way Nigerians organised protests or they simply and shamelessly demonstrated bias, the security agencies refused to oppose the pro-Buhari protests and would not even object in writing or verbally to the counteracting marches of February 14 citing their famous ‘laws’. The pro-government protests, which were not any better than the ones they tried to counteract, were addressed by the embattled Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, and one of President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesmen, Garba Shehu.
    It of course does not matter whether any of the protests inspired by Mr Idibia or the pro-government people were justified or not. What was in dispute was the constitutionality of the protests, a point so gravely missed by the pro-government rallies, the security agencies, and the aides of the president who addressed the pro-government rally. It is shocking, for instance, to hear Mallam Shehu, himself a senior media professional and somewhat a past activist, declaim against the anti-Buhari marches while apologising to the pro-government protesters about the minor resistance they encountered at the gates of the presidential palace. Hear him: “There was a communication gap at the Aso Villa gate because the police there did not know who was coming and I hope we will learn from this. You people put this government in place and you want to show support for what the government is doing; nobody has a problem with this. So, we welcome your demonstration, we welcome your support because this is what will keep the government strong.”
    If Mallam Shehu’s emotive statement was revealing and depressing enough, Mr Lawal’s Freudian slip and sycophantic gesture about President Buhari winning a second term even before the president could gather enough stamina to indicate interest in re-election revealed the sorry pass leadership and administration had come to in Nigeria. Nigeria, poor Nigeria, will have more of such ingratiating misspeaks in the months and years ahead, even as the security agencies continue to demonstrate both their imperviousness to the constitution and their unthinking and unbridled loyalty to the occupants of high office rather than the laws of the land.

  • Protests

    •They are integral to the working of democracy

    It is cheering that the acting President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, acknowledged the right of Nigerians to protest, as they did on Monday. That right is constitutional and it forms a kernel of any egalitarian democracy.

    A proper reading of sections 39, 40 and 41, of Chapter IV of the 1999 constitution, as amended; situates the right to protest as a fundamental right of Nigerians. In-between those sections, there is the right to freedom of expression, right to peaceful assembly and the right to move freely throughout Nigeria.

    So, Nigerians have a right to peacefully assemble and express themselves by way of protest. While the law enforcement agencies, particularly the police, should be interested in any potential public protest, we doubt if they have the power to unilaterally declare a protest unlawful, or put in the way of the protesters impossible conditions to frustrate them. What the police can do is to seek to be notified, so that they can provide adequate security for the protesters and other citizens not participating in the protest. The judgments of our courts support this position, and the police should never act otherwise.

    But unorganised protest can also be messy, and indeed would be of no value and a nuisance. In more entrenched democracies, the civil society constitutes themselves into very strong vanguards of the democratic project, and their best weapon is public protest. Even in emerging democracies, protests have been used to tilt the hand of the government in a preferred direction. Public protest was very instrumental in the defeat of communism. It has also remained a force to keep the emergent democracies in check, as we witnessed recently in Romania and South Korea.

    In the western countries, the bastion of democracy, protests many times are more efficient in tilting the hand of government than even opposition parliamentarians. In those democracies, the right to protest is sacrosanct, and no government has the power to curtail it. The barely two-week-old Donald Trump presidency in the US has witnessed massive protests against some of its policies. Indeed, even on the day of Trump’s inauguration, many cities and towns rocked with protest. His recent attempt to ban persons from some Muslim countries has also elicited country-wide protests.

    Perhaps, what is lacking in our country is the absence of organisational capacity of protesters. On the few occasions that they were well-organised, the results have been tremendous. A few examples include the massive protests during the reign of military President, Ibrahim Babangida, otherwise referred to by the press as the ‘SAP riots’. Another was the 2012 protest against the increase in fuel price while Goodluck Jonathan held sway as president, particularly the Lagos and Abuja versions of it. On both occasions, the governments were forced to amend their positions, if not in full, but close enough to assuage the protesters.

    The recent protest was against the economic hardship faced by majority of Nigerians. The message from the protesters included the demand for government to initiate effective policies to reduce the biting inflation and inadequate infrastructure, among several other demands. The protests arguably were not as massive as the promoters hoped, but definitely the message has been passed on to the leaders that urgent steps must be taken to ameliorate their sufferings.

    Good enough the acting president acknowledged the message of the protesters when he said:”We hear you loud and clear, those who are on the streets protesting the economic situation and even those who are not, but feel the pain of economic hardship.”

    Hopefully, the protesters have delivered their message. It behoves the government to work on their demands.