Victor EzejaA former Minister of Information and National Orientation, Labaran Maku, has faulted the ban of peaceful protests in Nasarawa State by police authorities, saying it is unconstitutional to do so in a democratic society.
Maku, who is the Director General of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential campaign council in Nasarawa State, strongly condemned the ban saying protest is done all over the world by citizens to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with certain happenings in the system.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelThe Nasarawa State Police Command had on Sunday, 26th March, banned all forms of protests across the 13 local government areas of the state, citing security concerns.
The ban followed persistent protests embarked upon by women believed to be supporters of the main opposition PDP in the state who felt aggrieved about the outcome of the election that saw the incumbent governor, and candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Sule, emerge as the winner of the 18th March governorship election in the state.
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The women, most of who engaged in naked protest, were venting their frustration about the outcome of the election.
The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Ramhan Nansel, in a statement in Lafia on Sunday said, “The police command took this decision so as to stop the breakdown of law and order and to sustain the peace currently being enjoyed in the state; as the intelligent report on security can no longer sustain any form of protest in the state.”
Nansel warned parents and guardians not to violate the order and threatened that anyone caught shall be arrested and prosecuted.
Maku, who appeared on Channels Television Sunrise Daily show on Tuesday, said that when he was a minister under the PDP-led administration, APC conducted protests, especially during the period when Chibok girls were abducted in Borno State and nobody stopped them because it is normal in a democracy.
“When we’re in government APC and those other elements decided to mount a protest in Abuja over the Chibok Girls issue but nobody stopped them.”
He said the ban on the protests in Nasarawa is emanating from the state government, adding that it never turned violent and shouldn’t have warranted placing an embargo on.
“Why will you ban public protest? Public protest is a constitutional right of the citizens?” Maku queried. “The duty of the security operatives is to ensure the safety of the citizens not to ban peaceful protest.”
Maku accused the APC government in the state of rigging the election and deliberately using security forces to stop the people from protesting against that.
According to the INEC’s state Returning Officer for the election, Ishaya Tanko, who announced the result, Sule polled 347, 209 votes to beat his closest challenger, David Ombugadu, the candidate of the PDP, who got 283, 016 votes.
The former Information Minister alleged that the wide margin with which the APC’s Sule defeated the PDP was a result of “fictitious figures” added by the APC at the last minute so that they can win. “Those figures cannot be explained by the accreditation data in BIVAS (Bimodal Voter Accreditation System). Those figures are not captured in the BVAS,” Maku claimed.
“Those figures you saw being announced at the last minute came from three electoral wards. How can elections in three electoral wards overtake elections in the whole state? So, they just cooked those figures up, and announced at the last minute to give the sitting governor victory.”
He further alleged that there is a certain powerful group that doesn’t want people from other parts of the state to have access to leadership.
Responding to why the PDP and APC were defeated by the Labour Party during the presidential election, Maku said they underestimated the ObIdient Movement and the LP candidate, Mr Peter Obi.
He said they thought that Obi’s presidential bid was a joke and that he doesn’t have structure but what happened was like a wave that swept their feet.
According to him, “What happened in the presidential election as you could see was that there was this wave of young people, the ‘Obidients’ that we all took for granted and we were thinking Peter Obi was a joke. Where would he go?
“So, both PDP and the APC, we were thinking ‘This man does not have structure. He will not be able to do so much’.
“But the young people seized the initiative from the politicians. And for the first time – what we saw in Nasarawa, Edo, several other places, and in Delta State where the PDP vice presidential candidate comes from – we saw that young people were serious about what they were doing and they took advantage of social media to project a programme which has shaken the nation.”
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
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