WE CONDEMN ATTACKS ON DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS
PRESS STATEMENT
We of the Socialist Party of Nigeria condemn in
the strongest terms the ban on public protests by the Borno State Police
Command of the Nigerian Police. According to media reports, angry wives of
soldiers in the 7th Division of the Nigerian Army in Maiduguri on August 10
staged a protest against the deployment of their husbands to Gwoza with
obsolete arms. It was reported that the top military command of the Division
wanted a fresh set of soldiers to go to Gwoza and rescue the seized town from
the Boko Haram terrorists who are holding sway in that part of the state.
It would be recalled that following the sack of
Gwoza by Boko Haram terrorists on Wednesday August 6, over 50 soldiers from
Maimalari and Giwa barracks under the 7th Division were given a mass burial at
the Maimalari barracks on August 10.
It was reported also that the women in the Giwa
barracks of the 21 Armoured Brigade, Maiduguri, barricaded the roads leading
out of the barracks while some went and locked the main entrance gate of the
barracks. They insisted that none of their husbands or men would go out of the
barracks on deployment to Gwoza.
There was also protest by members of Gwoza
community over the plight of their displaced people including many still held
up in the mountains without food as well as many dead bodies which have not
been buried.
We condemn the repression of the protests by
trigger happy police officers, who reportedly at the Government House Maiduguri
fired some shots at the protesters that landed a 26 years old man in the
intensive care unit of the University of Maiduguri Teaching hospital where
doctors are still battling to save him from bullet injury in his skull.
We demand justice for the injured protesters and
compensation for their families. We call for the unity of the rank-and- file
soldiers, the wives and families of dead soldiers and the terror-prone
communities in the struggle against attacks on democratic rights. We call for
democratic mass committee including elected representatives of the rank and
file members of the armed forces and communities to determine operation and
allocation of the resources for the war against terror
We call on the labour movement and pro-working
people organizations to rise up against brutal attacks on democratic rights in
the name of fighting terrorism.
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