House of Representative member, Amadiegwu attacked by Nigeria Police hospitalized

Apr

2006

	By *Omoyele Sowore /Sahara Reporters* 06 April 2006

A member of the House of Representatives, Francis Amadiegwu who was attacked by the Nigerian Police team led by FCT Police Commissioner, Lawrence Alobi is now hospitalized. Saharareporters earlier reported that Hon. Francis Amadiegwu was dragged on the floor of the lobby of the Sheraton Hotels and Towers in Abuja last night as police prevented anti-third term activists in the country from meeting at the hotel.

According to Hon. Uche Onyegocha who spoke with our reporters earlier today, Hon. Francis Amdiegwu condition had deterioted due to the way he was rough handled by the police team. Last year, Honorable Amadiegwu a Federal legislator from the Southeast was attacked by “armed robbers’ in his hometown last year. He sustained spinal cord injuries which led him to been flown abroad. He received treatments in German and US hospitals and spent considerable time recovering with members of his immediate family in Maryland, USA.

The police brutality visited upon him last night led to the deterioration of his physical condition. He walks around supported by a walking stick, according to Hon. Uche Onyegocha.

Though the meeting called to fight against third term, eventually held at the Guest House of the Niger State government last night Honorable Amadiegwu could not attend due to his condition he is currently hospitalized at an undisclosed hospital in Abuja.

It was at the meeting that the Vice President, Abubakar Atiku made public declarations that he “opposes” his boss third term agenda setting him in direct collision course with President Obasanjo. Earlier today, his spokesperson, Femi Fani-Kayode responded by asking the VP to resign his position immediately, condemning him for criticizing the president in public.

Meanwhile, pro-third term groups led by PDP party chair and secretary paid a courtesy visit on the speaker of the house earlier today. After meeting with Speaker Masari they went into a secret meeting with pro-third term legislators at 2:30 PM to formally declare that President Obasanjo will run for a third term in office. According to Chairman Alli, “the president has to continue his many projects and complete his economic reform programs”. In the meeting which held at “Hearing Room 1” at the National Assembly complex, the delegation led by Alli and Ojo Madueke promised each member of the pro-third term legislators a piece of land anywhere in Abuja, which they could sell if they wanted at any time. But the meeting became rowdy as the lawmakers present demanded to see a written agreement signed by President Obasanjo to that effect. Many of them said they will be more comfortable with a written agreement that precludes the EFCC or any government agency from investigating them in the future should the third term agenda fail.

The PDP party hierarchy left the meeting promising to return back soon with a concrete assurance. On their way out they paid another courtesy visit to the Senate President Ken Nnamani, in another closed session they thanked him for saving his Deputy Senator Ibrahim Mantu from suspension by casting a tie vote. They thereafter headed to Aso Rock for a meeting with President Obasanjo

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Robot

# 1 | 06.04.2006 18:22

	...Read the full article.

gwobezentashi gwobezentashi is offline

# 2 | 06.04.2006 18:40

	The Nigeria Police Farce, who cannot protect us from their friends in the underworld now feel they must brutalize people for politically disagreeing with their lord and master. What they fail to realise is that power is ephemeral as Tafa found out. One day you have it next day it's gone. When they treat our representatives this badly, what chance do the people stand? PCD was narrating his own tale on this board two pages ago. Infact coming into contact with the Nigeria Police these days is a life changing experience and you are lucky to come away with your life. Tom Tom Macoute. Apparently this is the treatment we need to straighten us out. More brutality seeing as we refuse to accept their 3rd term benevolence. There are more of us than there is of them so let them keep maiming us, keep shooting us, keep killing us. We will keep coming until we get our country back. Aluta! Gwobezentashi

gwobezentashi gwobezentashi is offline

# 3 | 06.04.2006 18:52

	In the meeting which held at â€œHearing Room 1â€ at the National Assembly complex, the delegation led by Alli and Ojo Madueke promised each member of the pro-third term legislators a piece of land anywhere in Abuja, which they could sell if they wanted at any time. But the meeting became rowdy as the lawmakers present demanded to see a written agreement signed by President Obasanjo to that effect. Many of them said they will be more comfortable with a written agreement that precludes the EFCC or any government agency from investigating them in the future should the third term agenda fail See what our country means to these people in the PDP and their co-3rd term travellers? A mess of pottage. These people are nothing but cash and carry opportunists and belong in jail not office. Land in Abuja for what? Let us see if they will get their written guarantees which will make implicating them and carting them away to Kirikiri all the more easy. What a despicable group? "Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are". See what you've caused Mr President? Aluta! Gwobezentashi

rodman rodman is offline

# 4 | 06.04.2006 19:01

	An open letter to President Olusegun Obasanjo--I am committed to pulling you and your government down I remember reading about you, on the eve of your first presidency. You were movingly described as one that had something to contribute, a breath of fresh air. They spoke about how you had laid a good precedent, by handing over power at the end of your tenure, the last time you came; they spoke about how you had found God in an event so needless, yet rewarding, caused by your detention by the maximum ruler you succeeded under a false charge. I remember the euphonious melodies made by people when Abacha died. I saw people united in joy ,their ecstasies were touchable.I heard stories of people, plunged into a whirlpool of endless celebration. Peopleâ€™s body languages declared a new beginning had come. Not long after you came to power , I saw people shouting down at Nzeribe for moving a motion to impeach you.I commiserated with their pleas, being mindful of the fact that, Nigeria is a difficult country to rule and couldn't be entangled in a day.I was indignant at Nzeribe, who I had come to see as a fringe politician. I plunged myself into grand expectations, despite the despondent cries of â€œcynicsâ€, who warned me, nothing would come out of your government. I dragged on, on this lonely road, hoping you truly had the people you were governing at heart. They would tell me ,expect nothing, but I chose to believe what I read about you .I chose to believe you were a light at the end of the tunnel ,I chose to believe that a new page had been openned in our history, I chose to believe we were entering a new dawn. Gradually but surely I was dislodged from my suspense animation, I was confronted slap-bang with a gruesome and mean reality. You disappeared and out came a forty-headed,knife-weilding,fire-spitting monster. I had plunged my head into a cloud like a headless chicken. I had wandered naively in cloud-cukoo-land .I stood and watched helplessly with my mouth openned as your messiac garb dissolved into a bloodsucking vampire. The painful reality has been a bitter pill of 6 years or more of gross mismanagement.I recall with fond memories a Zimbabwean newspaper that was shut down by Mugabe's government, but reopened on the internet.It may be that you have drank so much sycophantic tripe about your mythical reforms--going by the amount of compulsive sycophants here on the Nigerian village square ,who helplessly strain towards window dressings,when a blind man could see the fatalities of a failed government-- but I tell you, your government scores below zero. There is no sector I can turn to and give this government thumbs up. The only sector that comes close to it is the communication sector---I go through the depleting experience talking to people I left years ago----and it is filled inefficiencies. Your government has been characterised by a catalogue of failures: Abuja stadium ,Id card,electoral,census,Charles Taylor,Niger Delta et al controversies. Failures have followed you fanatically on your bum like flies to pooh.Anywhere you turn your attention, there is this preternatural pull and acidic eruption of failures of governance . I would not go into great details of the many failures of this government ,lest I open old sores of gorged victims, but I would point a few. An immediate failure, is the recent census count, which was marred by chronic irregularities. Your conspitorial and hypocritical leadership would not be forgotten in a hurry,infact in the due course of time, you might face a history tribunal of the same magnitude as Charles Taylorâ€™s, for your treacherous role in a census that carried a strong weight of importance and your historical affiliation to maintaining the fictional numerical might of the Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba, with the obvious pillage of Niger delta oil--state creation,federal character et al. In the heat of the many obstacles, including the rampage of MASSOB &MEND in the South-east and South-South respectively, the confusion, poor training nationwide, the NPC leader Makama, declared that 95%of the populace had been counted.I am not interested in the sarcastic content of this statement, but the brazen failure and neglect you approached something of this magnitude with. When you do "announce" the results, it would be greeted with the same response it received in 1953 till date. Speaking after the "debt cancellationâ€, the finance minister said, "The money saved, would help the country build infrastructure to help it diversify its economy" It has been almost seven years since you presided over the affairs of our country and there is little or no proof of diversfication.You have shunned local ingenuity. You get all worked out when you hear about the activities of MEND because you know that is almost all you have--the last time I checked supplies were cut by 20%-- yet you do almost nothing to stop the oil companies spilling blood--pollution-- on their soil or a just deal for them. You have failed to come out with a blueprint for economic rejuvenation ,without a sting of external subservience--"economic police force ".You go on a peripatetic ride to oblivion under the illusion of purposeful global touring. The thought of you staying one more second should never arise under normal circumstances. In the place of working for the betterment of the nation your foot soldiers in the name of legislators and thieving governors have embarked on an incessant journey of toiling with our constitution, in order to perpetuate you under the guise of your "leadership immortalityâ€. I put it to you that your silence is calculated.Daily we are inundated with the nauseating clangour of a man we cannot do without,daily we are briefed by spin-doctors about the necessity of you staying for a third term,we are told, you have to stay to prevent the North from coming and the need of carrying on your "reforms". The irritating clank of this pathology has served as a red herring to cover the numerous failings, the government incurs every minute it breaths. You failed to rule out categorically, that you are not going to contest for election in your recent interview in America, against the back drop of your previous assertions that you were not going to contest. Your cheek by jowl relationship with Chris Uba crowned by an oil block says a lot about you. I have just read fresh reports by Omoyele Sowore that state security agents threatenned to shoot members of the lower house legislative chamber who gathered to scuttle the third term insanity. Under your tenure we almost relived, to the full, the genocides against Southerners in the '60s.Thousands of Southerners lost their lives in an incessant bout of bloodletting festivals, all in a bid to snuff out infidels by jihadists.The perpetrators disappear into normal life afterwards .By your actions, it appeared you didn't have a care in the world if they all went down. There have been reports of security agents being in cahoots with these racists; they provided and still provide the security lapse needed for the large body harvest. There are also reports, that Southern lives are snuffed at will, daily, but go unreported by the popular media. I watched with disgust as members of your government celebrated the "debt reliefâ€. I endured the shame of your merry go rounds in your bid to get "debt relief" and foreign investments. I watched as your government begged like babies to get debt relief.You made a statement sometime ago that as long as Nigeria functions, there would always be a necessity of loan -taking, hence your loan-taking binge. You have sold us to that racist ,tear-down IMF and whatever organisation that do not have our apeal in their sight.Your actions have brought shame to our Nation.Yes,you got the debt relief, but not without the shame,racism,ridicule et al.Left to you nothing would happen in Nigeria. We would sling out in mud houses.It would be the same old damn story.We approach our fifth decade and we do not make aeroplanes,cars et al.Rulers like you, do not believe your fellow africans can make them .So in your uncle tomism pathology, you import the whole world into Nigeria,from jets,cars you name it, and you try to destroy Africans who believe they have the ability to produce and do produce them. I say, it is time we had a leadership that comes up with policies that encourage the development and impartation of skills if necessary to indigenes, a government that takes up the economic cudgel assertively, not a bunch of failed technocrats in the mould of presidents, finance ministers,CBN directors et al, that would continue to live in subservience and attract the scorn,laughter,sarcasim,racism et al of the outside world. A people labouring under a false sense of messiachood, who intracticably drain, virtually, the only resourse we depend on: oil and cry and run to the outside world with the irritating cries of bone- protuding,skeleton-showing,never-eaten folks. I have lost the slightest sympathy for your government. What we see in the place of proposals are pyramids of piffles.I would like to see every member of this oppressive government ejected forcefully, if we are to move forward as a nation. I say, it is time you and your crew vanished from our sight, you all have failed, you do not deserve a second more, to plunge your heads and hands into our treasury. Maazi Rodman

InDiaspora InDiaspora is offline

# 5 | 07.04.2006 05:16

	@ Maazi Rodman Hear, hear! Heartfelt indeed.

sojourner sojourner is online

# 6 | 07.04.2006 08:15

	Rodman I do really think achievement made by OBJ in the communication sector is really overblown.Promulgating a law to licence the airspace for private enterpreneurs to invest in the country'scommunication sector to their profit is in my opinion zero achievement.Has he able to resuscitate our railway sector,power generation sector,educational sector?. The answer is No.These are areas that can be use to measure the achievement of government.You know many years ago one minister banned the broadcasting of CNN on the NTA with the excuse that it will corrupt the soul of nigerian nation,but meanwhile they and their children watched this same CNN via satellite .They never tell us ,the poor people of this nation how they managed to sieve the corrossive influence of cnn broadcasting from their kids. My point is, i can now watch CNN anytime i want with no thank to the the government but rather all my thanks go to the time we live in.WE live in the golding age of communication ,and its flow to all corners of the earth is unstopable with no thanks to OBJ .He is out of his depth and better for to go back ad DEY KAMPE with his chickens

igwe

# 7 | 07.04.2006 08:55

	That's OBJ's "democrazy dividend" May he follow Abacha to the end!!!

rodman rodman is offline

# 8 | 07.04.2006 13:17

	InDiaspora & sojourner, I appreciate your replies. Igwe, I do not want him to die as Abacha did, neither would I want anyone to wish him same.My opposition to him is predicated upon his performance.I respect his humanity but I want him,his finance minister,CBN gorvernor,Atiku and the rest to leave;their leaderships have been characterised by abysmal failures with no impact on Nigerians. Maazi Rodman

Joseph Joseph is online

# 9 | 07.04.2006 15:49

	Fawehinmi cautions anti-third term campaigners By Ibe Uwaleke, Judicial Correspondent (The Guardian) HUMAN Rights activist and social crusader, Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), has advised anti-third term campaigners, particularly those who are prevented by the police from holding meetings, to abide by the law of the land. He was reacting to the event at Sheraton Hotel, Abuja, venue for the meeting of some eminent Nigerians opposed to the third term agenda, which the Nigerian police disrupted on Wednesday, April 5, 2006. In a statement made available to The Guardian yesterday, Fawehinmi said: "I am saddened by the event of yesterday (Wednesday) when some eminent Nigerians assembled at Sheraton Hotel, Abuja to hold a meeting on the crucial issue of General Olusegun Obssanjo's third term agenda." While sympathising with the cause of those who attended the meeting, he stated that the law of the land must be respected as decided by the Court of Appeal. In the case, which he cited as Dr. Lewis Chukwuma and 2 ORS Vs. Commissioner of Police decided on March 10, 2005, he said that the appellate court considered the fundamental right of Nigerian citizens under Section 40 and 45 of the 1999 Constitution and the powers of the police under the Public Order Act (POA) and the Police Act (PA), the fiery lawyer said the court held that any meeting of persons in private or public place where member or members of the public can have access, can only take place with police permit." He added: "If such meeting or assemblage is being held without such police permit, any police officer of the rank of inspector or above can stop such meeting or prevent same from taking place." According to him, this decision of the Court of Appeal, which has not been challenged at the Supreme Court, is the law and must be enforced by all authorities and persons under Section 287(2) of the 1999 Constitution. Under this section, he noted that the constitution provides that "the decisions of the Court of Appeal shall be enforced in any part of the federation by all authorities and persons, and by court with subordinate jurisdiction to that of the Court of Appeal." He said he personally disagreed with this decision of the Court of Appeal, but until this judgment is tested at the apex court, "it still remains the law of the land." He said that though, he and others like him are opposed to the third term agenda of the President, it must be done under the ambit of the law and "not in disregard of this judgment." To him, the fight to the third term agenda should be done using the law of the land. "There lies our strength," he counselled.

Elaa

# 10 | 07.04.2006 16:14

	I can only say, we should thank God that Abacha was not as desperate as Obasanjo is to stay in power. If the fact that we are in a democracy does not give the connotation of freedom of speech and expression to Uncle Sege, so that views contrary to his CANNOT be tolerated, then nothing should have been beyond Abacha. I know the man did more than his fair share of damage to the physical and emotionally well-being of Nigerians, don't get me wrong. It's just that given what Obasanjo is doing as a 'democratically elected' (?) President, it just paints the picture that Abacha could have been much worse than he was. May we find salvation in good time.

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