Wednesday 27 August 2014

BAN ON PROTESTS IN BORNO



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.
 
Segun Sango
National Chairperson

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