he Nigeria Rally, which was scheduled to hold in Gboko, Benue state on Friday December 26th, 2008 at the Bays Garden hotel, was stopped by the government of President Yar'Adua, which prides itself as a Rule-of-law government. The reason was simply that "government is not comfortable with the rally".
Early in the morning of Friday Dec 26th, 2008, a group of state security men led by one Mr. Moses Aba, the security Head of state security service (S.S.S) Gboko, Benue State, led a team of police men to stop the rally from holding. They commanded the gates into the rally venue locked and ordered the truck which was conveying seats and canopies out of the premises.
The key speaker at the rally, Dr Leonard Karshima Shilgba, an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the American University of Nigeria, Yola, told the security team that the team was "operating outside the canopy of the law, and are thus exposed to the harsh weather of impunity". When Mr. Aba, the security head, insisted they had the backing of the Police Public order Act, Dr Shilgba reminded him that the Act was voided by the Appeal Court of Nigeria. Security Officer, Aba answered that the Police had appealed the ruling at the Supreme Court, to which Dr Shilgba replied, "Even if there is an appeal against the judgment pending before the Supreme Court, that in itself has not vacated the judgment of the Appeal Court". Dr Shilgba further reminded the team of the right guaranteed Nigerians under Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution. The team then left and returned with over 30 police officers in three trucks and a wagon.
Dr Shilgba and his team left to meet with the Area commander in Gboko, who informed them that he had received an order the previous evening from the Benue Commissioner of Police to stop the rally from holding. He said the standing order was to 'escort. recalcitrant organizers of the rally to Abuja.
On return to the Gboko Bays Garden hotel, the venue of the Nigerian rally, one detective Samuel asked and collected the program paper for the rally and two rally speeches by Dr Shilgba, with the titles -
- Nigerians, it is time (.pdf)
- A nation without shepherds (.pdf)
which he said would be delivered to the Benue State Commissioner of Police. He however advised against any press conferences by the organizers of the rally.
(Both papers are attached below)
Having asked for assurances that Dr Shilgba and his collaborators on the Nigeria rally would not force the holding of the rally, the detective left behind some Police men and two Police vans. A Peugeot station wagon with registration number PF2065BN belonging to OPERATION FLUSH and a Hilux van with plate number NPF 4933B, to ensure that the organizers of the rally did not hold the rally.
It should be noted that officer Aba had asked for and collected the Professor's complimentary card; Dr Shilgba however declined to give his residential address when officer Aba demanded to know.
The Nigeria Rally is meant to accomplish the following:
- Educate consistently the masses about their condition, even though many think they know enough, and the DANGERS of doing nothing (siddon look disposition).
- Create a relevant concentration of anger within Nigerians which is a necessary fuel for agitation for improvement of their estate.
- Develop a persistent, tenacious spirit in Nigerians that will not thaw under the heat of government persecution until a true Nigerian spirit is born, which shall unite Nigerians around a common project, devoid of tribal, ethnic, or religious colorations.
- To demand for and attain a just and equitable remuneration of political officials (Nigerian rulers) with respect to the national minimum wage and the quality of "service" they offer society.
- To achieve access by the true bosses (Nigerians) to relevant information which includes but is not limited to that which has to do with accruement of revenue into the Nigerian purse, the trajectory of expenditure of same and by whom.
- Release of the various constituents of Nigeria to develop at their pace. The current pretentious efforts at review of the 1999 constitution must be seized upon for a genuine review which allows each village, community, and state to keep at least 50 percent of whatever revenue is generated from their domain.
- The attainment of true nationhood, where citizenship is defined by either place of birth or place of productive residence with appropriately derived rights rather than by some weird determinants like ancestral roots.
The above objectives, if achieved, shall free resources and needed energies for investment in education, health, modern agriculture, roads and railways, clean and efficient energy and power for the improved quality and quantity of a Nigerian life. Besides, Nigerian workers can then be assured of a living wage.
We are quite aware that what we do will take time to fruit. But every beautiful piece of artistic work takes time to fashion. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society, with a large segment of people in that society, who feel they have no stake in it; who feel that they have nothing to lose. People who have a stake in their society protect that society, but when they don't have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it." Being confident in this incontestable truth from the lips of this shining example of selfless sacrifice, we seek to prevent a crisis from metamorphosing into a cataclysm in Nigeria; a country where the value of the Nigerian is less in the eyes of their rulers than their home dogs; a nation that is increasingly engaging in a war against herself.
Frederick Douglass, an African-American Abolitionist once said: "Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. "
Program papers for the rally:
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