ABUJA – Thousands of placard-carrying members of the Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) drawn from the 774 local government councils of the federation yesterday invaded the National Assembly complex in Abuja to register their rejection of call for removal of the third tier system from the Nigerian Constitution.
The invasion later forced the Senate in session to close business as the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu trotted out of the chamber in the company of several other senators to attend to the ferocious visitors.
Attempts by the armed riot policemen to stop the forceful intruders proved feeble as they poured through the barricades like water from broken dam.
The demonstrators arrived the first gate of the National Assembly with their placards some of which read: “NO LOCAL GOVERNMENT!”, “NO DEMOCRACY! NO NIGERIA!”, “LOCAL GOVERNMENT SYMBOL OF DEMOCRACY IN NIGERIA”, “THE THIRD TIER OF GOVERNMENT OF THE SERVICE FULL AUTONOMY”, “EXPUNGE JOINT ACCOUNT”, and several others as they chanted solidarity songs along the way.
Trouble started when the police who had taken strategic positions, closed in and demanded that the demonstrators end their mission at the gate.
That changed the tempo of the song and the mood of the demonstrators who suddenly roared into the air with their deafening chants:
The police who were armed with guns and tear-gas canisters responded with shots of the tear-gas to disperse the crowd but the strategy failed as they successfully forced their way into the National Assembly where they blocked the main entrance into the White House and held everyone including the legislators hostage insisting that nobody would come out of the twin legislative building.
For several minutes they held every one hostage forcing the Senate to hurriedly step down other matters of the day and adjourn to enable the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu to address the protesters.
President of NULGE, Kingsley Ugo Ogba presented a seven-point agenda to the Deputy Senate President and other senators who accompanied him namely:
The State Joint Allocation and Account Committee be abolished;
Section Seven (7) of the 1999 Constitution be amended;
The burden of Primary School Funding be removed from Local Government;
The Local Government Service Commission be launched in the constitution as its counterparts at the State and Federal levels;
a common tenure for all
elected Local and government officers in the country.
“We are definitely worried that our over two million members will be thrown into the already suffocating unemployment market with its attendant implications on the lives of the over ten million dependent relatives”.
“We are also worried that the burden of funding primary education in Nigeria has been left for local government alone against the spirit and letter of the spirit of the 1999 constitution and in utter disregard of the subsisting Supreme Court ruling on the matter among several other demands”, Mr. Ogba said.
The Deputy Senate President however, apologised for whatever humiliation the demonstrators may have suffered by the police action but reminded them that the process for constitutional amendment had not started.
He also dissociated the Senate from whatever view any senator may have expressed over the continued existence of the local government as third tier government saying those views were strictly the personal opinions of the individual senators and does not represent the views of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
He further told the visitors that as soon as the process for the amendment of the constitution begins, they should come forward to make a formal presentation of their position but warned that they must also be prepared to listen to the views of others that may not necessarily agree with their own.
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