PROTESTERS in Abuja were worked into a frenzy on Tuesday, as they unanimously demanded for President Umaru Yar’Adua’s resignation. The protesters, mainly from civil society and human rights groups, took to the streets of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, and challenged Yar’Adua’s refusal to transfer powers to the vice-president, following his failing health and asked the National Assembly to invoke section 145 of the Nigerian Constitution.

The protesters, who operated under the group called Save Nigeria Group (SNG), included the Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka; Mr. Femi Falana; Pastor Tunde Bakare of the Latter Rain Assembly; Honourable Farouk Adamu Aliyu; Charles Oputa; Osita Okechukwu; Mrs. Ayo Obe, the National Publicity Secretary of the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties, among others.

Speaking one after the other, the protesters took the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and the National Assembly to the cleaners on the poor state of the nation, worsened by the continued absence of President Yar’Adua.

Pastor Bakare, while addressing the crowd, declared Yar’Adua ‘unfit’ to continue to rule Nigeria, as he committed the crowd to chorus, “Go home, pack your load and go home.”

He threw his weight behind those who advocated the swearing-in of the vice-president as the next president, stressing that the intention of the protesters was to ensure good governance in the country and not for any other political reason.

Professor Soyinka urged Nigerians to reject the state of colonialism, which, according to him, the current administration Nigeria was subjecting the country to.
The nation, Soyinka stressed, “has been held to ransom and conquered, while we are all being treated as if we are in a colony.”

Soyinka stressed the importance of the protests against the Yar’Adua government, stressing that the protest was in order in democracy, more so as the government of the day had refused to tell Nigerians the truth on the situation of health of President Yar’Adua.

He recalled the efforts he had made in the past, alongside other human rights activists, on the need to set the governance of Nigeria rightly, as, according to him, the language he had been employing had not changed since.

A former member of the National Assembly, Honourable Aliyu, spoke the mind of the protesters when he described the current crop of Nigerian leaders as liars. He called Nigerians to, henceforth, begin to demand for the kind of leadership that would tell them the truth always.

Adamu, who is a member of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in Jigawa State, said Nigerians should demand that in the event of the continued absence of President Yar’Adua, his deputy, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, be sworn in immediately.

Another former member of the House, Honourable Uche Onyeagucha, spoke and described the core supporters of President Yar’Adua as the same set of politicians who concocted the third term agenda for former President Obasanjo, describing them all as “a criminal cabal and terrorists.”

Onyeagucha, said the cabal had finally succeeded in hijacking the government of President Yar’Adua and urged the National Assembly to rise to the occasion by taking decision on how to end the vacuum created by the absence of the president.

Also, Lagos lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana, said Nigerians should say “no to offshore presidency” and berated the Senate for refraining from debating issues about the absence of the president on account that the matter had been laid before a court of law.

Others who spoke at the rally included Hajiya Najatu Muhammed from Kano and Alhaji Buba Galadima, Director, Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation.


http://www.tribune.com.ng/13012010/news/news1.html