POLICE
STOPS SPN MEMBERS PROTEST TO INEC OFFICE
By Dimeji Macaulay
On Monday 31st of October, 2016 members
of Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) gathered at the Federal High Court 6 that
was scheduled for hearing, habitually the court did not sit because the judge
was attending a seminar. This is the twelfth adjournment between November 19,
2014 and December 5, 2016, which is the next adjourned date out of which the matter
was mentioned only 4 times. Hence, we have been on this matter for over 2 years
considering the fact that the matter was actually instituted in court on
September 10, 2014. It is curious that the organizing secretary of the party,
Comrade Macaulay visited the court on Friday October 28, 2016 to ascertain if
the court will sit and the court officials told him that the case will be
coming up. According to the court registrar, the judge informed him that he
will be attending a seminar on the afternoon of Friday October 28, 2016. The
annoying part of this is that the registrar informed all lawyers who have
matters that same day and resides outside Abuja of this development and did not
inform our lawyer who travelled all the way from Lagos and wasted time and
money. As if the INEC knew of this development, it was not in any way
represented at the court, not even its lawyer.
This underscores the backwardness of the
judicial system in Nigeria with its attendant consequences such that matters
linger in court for a long time, the administrative work is inefficient and the
whole processes are unnecessarily cumbersome. It is not only that the Nigeria
judicial system depicts the fact that justice is mostly delayed and denied at
the expense of the poor and underprivileged.
Present in court were four National
Executive Committee Members (NEC) of the party and are Comrade Dagga Tolar,
Mikailu Tijani, Zira Nuhu and Sani Yankuso and five other comrades and members
of the SPN.
Usually, members of the party protest
outside the court, whether the court sits or not. Hence, members and leaders of
the party decided to continue the protest and decided to match to INEC headquarters
in Abuja to express their grievances. As the protest march moved along central
road of Maitama somewhere around unity fountain the police stationed there raced
towards the protesters in their bullion van. They requested to know what is happing
and they were briefed by Dagga who made the point that INEC deliberate refusal to
register SPN despite meeting all legal requirements is the reason for the
protest. They asked if the protesters have permission from police to embark on
protest and Dagga replied that police permission is never required since
protest is an inalienable democratic right.
After the argument went on for minutes
the police officers had to call their Superior officers (Abiodun Alamatu and
A.A Hassan) who came and appealed to us to end the protest. The protest was terminated
after protesting the police undemocratic position.
One good aspect of the protest is that
SPN members had marched for over thirty minutes on major roads in Abuja with
many passerby reading our placards and banners. However, this is the first time
a protest was carried out on the street of Abuja over INEC’s refusal to
register SPN. Some of the inscription on the placards and the banner are:
“protest continues until our certificate is issued to us; INEC’s agenda is to
reserve politics solely for the rich; SPN has met all legal requirement,
register it now!; INEC must respect the law etc.”
The party has resolved to continue the
protest and consolidate on the October 24 and 31, 2016 protests including all
other forms of political actions.
The truth is that no matter how long the
victory is near!
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