24-hour curfew imposed on Kaduna
Newsdiaryonline Tue Jan10,2012

A  24-hour curfew has been imposed on Kaduna metropolis and its environs by the state security council commencing from  9 PM this night.This announcement came after labour barred public protest in the state following the violence that broke out today .As  the nationwide anti-fuel subsidy removal protests entered a second day on Tuesday, leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) in Kaduna, in collaboration with the coalition of civil society groups and the Nigerian Bar Association in the area, barred residents from street protests, until further notice.

Speaking at a joint a press conference on Tuesday, the state NLC Chairman, Adamu Ango, said, “we do not want a breakdown of law and order in the state and that is why we decided to suspend street protests for now.

“We have met at the level of Nigeria Labour of Congress and other civil society groups and the NBA and have agreed to suspend street protests.

“We want to plead with people that protesting on the streets to go back to their houses.

“It is only the people that are saddled with the responsibility of monitoring the strike that are to come to the NLC secretariat daily.

“The NLC, TUC, NBA and civil society groups will be addressing press conferences at every point in time when the need arises.

“We want to cease this opportunity to pleaded with our teaming youth who are supporting this our strike not to take the laws into their hand.

“They should not continue to protest where security agencies are trying to stop them. If they are asked to go back, please, in the interest of peace, obey and go back.

“The issue of this fuel subsidy is already known worldwide and we will continue to make our case known and so, we do not want a situation where have casualties. We started this protest peacefully and we went to end it peacefully.”

Chairman of TUC in the state, Comrade Shehu Mohammed, who also spoke at the briefing, said, “I want to use this medium to appreciate the conduct of our members and the good people of Kaduna state so far to start the protest and end it in a peaceful manner.

“At this point in time, we want to appeal to our members and members of the public to be calm as the message has been sent across the globe and to the presidency. Therefore, no more street protests until the people of Kaduna state hear from us.

“We called for the protest in the first place and we are not saying that in order to maintain law and order in the state, the protest should be suspended until the people hear from us.

“We really appreciate the cooperation given to us and hope that the issue will be resolved very soon.”

Festus Okoye, leader of the civil society groups, , explained the directive further saying that Kaduna has a peculiar security challenge. As Okoye put it, “I think that there are critical issues involved in the challenge we have right now. The first issue is that we have a peculiar security challenge in Kaduna and because of those challenges; we have decided to handle this particular struggle in a peculiar way.

“It seems that it is the government that is trying to make Nigeria ungovernable. It seems to me that what the government is trying to do is to create a situation of violence so that they can claim that it is the civil society groups and Labour movement that has created an ungovernable situation leading to an atmosphere of chaos and we are not going to allow that.

“The constitution provides that the government owes its people two main duties. The first duty is to provide for their welfare and the second duty is to provide for their security.

“All the figures that the government is branding around as palliatives do not have content and context because when you talk about palliatives, you are still talking about subsidy.

“Why should Nigerian be paying for fuel like those countries that do not produce oil? Is it not better for us to close our oil well, start full scale importation of oil and be paying as much as others are paying?

“We completely understand what the government wants to do and we don’t want to play into their hands. We all know the consequences.

“But let me say that civil society groups will move to protect democracy. We will not defend the government that wants its people to die of starvation.

“People are angry and we are trying to curtail that anger; but the way government officials are speaking leaves much to be desired. You cannot present Nigerians with a situation of irreversibility.

“If you are making policies and laws for them and 99 per cent of them says they do not want it, you have to look inward and ask yourself, since the policies I have made are not for the people, is it not possible to reverse them or come to dialogue with the people and see how it can benefit them?

“What we are saying is that we will join Labour and continue to address rallies, but we want to move our people out of the streets so that the government will not have any excuse for shooting our people and turn round to blame it on Labour and civil society groups.”