Hoping to break the power vacuum and constitutional gridlock in the country, a new group of patriotic Nigerians will next week embark on major streets protests in Abuja, Lagos, Kaduna, Port Harcourt, London and New York to protest Umaru Yar’Adua’s refusal to hand power over to his deputy before he was evacuated abroad on medical grounds as determined by the constitution.

The "Save Nigeria Group," which was convened by the fiery Lagos Pastor, Tunde Bakare, said after a meeting in Lagos on the State of the Nation, called on Nigerians to join its membership and work to halt the nation's slide into the status of a "failed state and quasi-dictatorship."

It lamented what it termed “the dangerous slide of Nigeria into a failed state, worsened by the power vacuum and absence of C-IN-C in Nigeria for the past 45 days.”

Expressing outrage at the story making the rounds that Yar'Adua has spoken to some federal officials, the Save Nigeria Group called on him to address all Nigerians by radio or television, stressing that he is the leader of the entire country. It further demanded that Yar’Adua save Nigeria’s fledgling democracy, national security and his own health by deploying the provisions of Section 145 of the constitution.

It would be recalled that members of Yar’Adua’s kitchen cabinet, sensing the deteriorating public mood in the country, orchestrated an elaborate scheme where a voice purported to be Yar’Adua’s made telephone calls to the VP, the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
The Abuja-based arrowhead of the kitchen cabinet, Yakubu Tanimu-Kurfi, Yar’adua’s Chief Economic Adviser, claimed that Yar’dua had spoken to the officials to report that he was “recovering” and headed home “soon”. The scheme confirms Saharareporters exclusive stories that Yar’Adua had not spoken to anyone in his cabinet since he departed Nigeria 45 days ago.

But holes in the conversation claims were quick to emerge. For instance, Tanimu claimed that Yar’Adua discussed with him an “anti-terrorism bill” pending before the National Assembly and asked that he convey his desires to have it pass them to the Attorney General of the Federation, Michael Aondoakaa. But that was an obvious lie, because the AGF has always claimed that he speaks to the “president” frequently. Tanimu provided no explanation as to why Yar’Adua needed to send him to a man with whom he speaks frequently over something as critical as an “anti-terrorism bill,” if any.

But sources privy to the so-called Yar’Adua calls described the voice as hoarse and incoherent that if it really was Yar’Adua’s, the only inference is that he is in such a bad shape that he could only have been forced to participate in the phone conversations, and to keep them very short. The report from the Speaker, which was made available in James Ibori’s Daily Independent paper, confirmed that Yar’Adua only spoke for four minutes, but the VP’s call was said to have been even shorter. We could not confirm from David Mark if he actually received any call. Mark is yet to publicly speak about speaking to Yar’Adua.

The Save Nigeria Group also expressed worry today that as the nation approaches the 2011 elections, the genuine Electoral Reform promised by President Umaru Musa Yaradua at his inauguration is vanishing due to lack of political will and outright refusal to implement the Uwais Electoral Reform Committee Bills.

www.nigerialibertyforum.org.uk

Nigerians are no terrorists!

Where is President Musa Yar'Adua?

Nigerian government should respect the constitution

Sovereign National Conference now!

Stop the criminalisation of Nigerians!

Respect the Rights of Nigerians!

Join the protest march in

London!
Starts 12pm Friday 15th January 2010 Trafalgar square,
move to parliament square- then ends at Nigerian High Commission, Nigeria
House 9 Northumberland Avenue, London, WC2N 5BX encouraged to come with
Nigerian flag. Homemade banners, dress warm. Contact 07984212553 or e
mail info@nigerialibertyforum.org.uk London Metropolitan Police will provide security


Abuja!
National Assembly complex!
Time 12 pm Date 12th January 2009


Australia!
Australian protest: Nigerian High Commission, Canberra. 26 Guilfoyle
Street, Yarralumla, ACT 2600
Ph: +61 2 6282 7411. Time: 12 PM. Tuesday 12th January 2010. Contact
Abiola Falayajo Jr. abifas@hotmail.com for more details.


JOHANNESBURG/PRETORIA PROTEST: Starts 12PM, Tuesday, 12th January 2010 at Nigerian high Commission, 138 Becket Street P.O. Box 27332. Arcadia Pretoria South Africa Contact: DAINI OLUSESAN MAYOKUN (t) +27837333322 (e) dainisesan@gmail.com

proudly9ja:

A step in the right direction in my opinion

monkeyleg:

seek change, get a credible opposition together and kick pdp out. Simple solution

Please no one Should join with the Yorubas on any protest, they may sabotage you and runaway

walata44:

sorry! you stinks with your opinion.

Wily*Wily:

Yorubas are Saboteurs, embarking on a task like this with them is too risky.

proudly9ja:

^^^
Well as far as I can see, the conveners of the protests are people I can trust. Tunde Bakare has been consistent in his critism and Pat Utomi needs no introduction. The guys at the Nigerian Liberty Forum have also been consistent. They sent out Aandoakka from the UK some months back and also led the protest against Obasanjo when he visited UK. Also recently, they protested agains Waziri in the US so I can trust them

As per the Abuja version of the protest, let us see if police will shoot at a peaceful protest with well placed Nigerians like the ones named above in the fore front.

Yorubas are Saboteurs, embarking on a task like this with them is too risky.

~Sauron~:

Is Mr. President dead?

Wily*Wily:

Yorubas are Saboteurs, embarking on a task like this with them is too risky.

proudly9ja:

Y u ask?

trueword:

well , we will see what this brings. If the protesting can actually force these hooligans in control of Nigeria to hand over power to Jonathan, then maybe Nigerians,especially those in Nigeria, will see that if they really decide to, they can force those crooks to do what they suppose to do.

trueword:

This would have been even better if we were more able to have protests going on in various places around the world with a large Nigerian population. It would really bring attention to the situation, when you have protests going on across the U.S. , Canada, and some other European countries. But this is still a good start. Hopefully it works.

Kobojunkie:



What is with the hand over power to Jonathan bit though? Does it matter now?

In 2009, we heard of numerous protests around the world. Many groups organization protests and even went as far as stoning some of our politicians. Do protests outside of Nigeria work? If yes, any example?

trueword:

Well if we have no acting president, then no executive decision can be taken. In order for some things to happen in Nigeria, the approval of the president is sometimes needed. For example, maybe some legislation. Jonathan may not be any diff. from Yar'Adua but I'm just crazily holding out a mm of hope that Jonathan may actually be a little better. In a sense Nigeria doesn't really have a government so I guess it wouldn't really matter whether we have a president.

trueword:

By protesting abroad, we may not be able to force the Nigerian govt to do anything directly, but we may be able to convince foreign govt. to put pressure on them. [b]If we can convince foreign govt. that the situation in Nigeria is not good for them, they may be complelled to help us to do something about it.[/b]Though at the end of it all Nigerians are the ones that need to change Nigeria.

Kobojunkie:

Precisely, we haven’t had one in 6 weeks, and not much has changed. So I wonder why we desperately need to get Jonathan in there. lol
How? What exactly do you FORCE them to do for us? I mean Nigeria was put on a list of terrorists, and we are all almost united in condemning that move by the US. What exactly can they do for us?

trueword:

I'm just holding out a sliver of crazy hope that Jonathan will come in and become a strong leader, clean house and actually attempt to improve country's condition. It's not likely to happen, but we will never know until he is given the power of presidency. I mean if he does bad, it's not like it will be diff. from any of his predecessors and we will move on.

trueword:

well maybe they can stop allowing these politicians to continue stashing looted funds in their country. maybe they can ban them from entering their country until to take certain action i.e. provide infrastructure to prevent likelyhood that idle youths will be lured by extremists. I don't expect other nations to do everything to cleanse up Nigeria, but maybe they can be a piece to the overall plan.

trueword:

none of these politicians will ever consider fixing Nigeria, if they can always runaway from the problem by going overseas, sending their children and family overseas and etc.

Kobojunkie:

But is the chance worth it? I say again, we have been running without a bad president for over 6 weeks now. Why bring in another one who could potentially be another bad one when we could focus on working to get a good one or one we can control in the next 3 months? In over 6 weeks, Jonathan has yet to show he even has the base qualities of a leader. Your own reps seem to lack respect for him and his views, it seems. What more do we need to know of this man to know he is nothing but another one of the bad leaders? I mean even his record before taking office mirrors that of yar adua in some way.
You can tell I have NO HOPES in that man being a good president, and I will not support another bad one.
In essence, we will have them do our own job for us? Our own intelligence community is not even calling for the seizure of the looting loot, why should these countries even take it on themselves to do our work for us? Remember last year when the US went after tax defaulters who had money stashed away in Switzerland accounts? It was the US that initiated that move, not the switz authorities.


Our laws allow them to do as they see fit. Our own authorities allow this. If we want them shackled, all we need to do is amend the laws to ensure this. Foreign countries can HELP in enforcing our own laws but I doubt they can actually initiate any of the above.

Kobojunkie:

But is the chance worth it? I say again, we have been running without a bad president for over 6 weeks now. Why bring in another one who could potentially be another bad one when we could focus on working to get a good one or one we can control in the next 3 months? In over 6 weeks, Jonathan has yet to show he even has the base qualities of a leader. Your own reps seem to lack respect for him and his views, it seems. What more do we need to know of this man to know he is nothing but another one of the bad leaders? I mean even his record before taking office mirrors that of yar adua in some way.
You can tell I have NO HOPES in that man being a good president, and I will not support another bad one.
In essence, we will have them do our own job for us? Our own intelligence community is not even calling for the seizure of the looting loot, why should these countries even take it on themselves to do our work for us? Remember last year when the US went after tax defaulters who had money stashed away in Switzerland accounts? It was the US that initiated that move, not the switz authorities.


Our laws allow them to do as they see fit. Our own authorities allow this. If we want them shackled, all we need to do is amend the laws to ensure this. Foreign countries can HELP in enforcing our own laws but I doubt they can actually initiate any of the above.

aisha2:

Update! Nigerians march for Change Abuja Venue now published! SPEAKERS: Prof. Wole Soyinka, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu, Dr. Tunde Bakare, Hon. Farouk Aliyu Adamu , Mr. Solomon Asemota (SAN), Dr. Tunji Braithwate, Hajiya Najatu Mohammed, Prof. Pat Utomi, Pastor Sarah Omakwu, Mr. Femi Falana, Hon. Olawale , Oshun, Dr. Tunji Abayomi, Mrs. Ayo Obe, Mallam Naseer Kura, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, Hon. Uche Onyeogocha etc. Abuja-NigeriaSave Nigeria Group (SNG)