Anambra Assembly Locks Out Pressure Groups

About eight different coalitions of pressure groups of social and economic reforms, including rights groups agitating for the local government elections to be held in Anambra State, were Friday, locked out of the State Assembly Complex in Awka by security operatives.

The groups led by Comrade Osita Obi of the Environment Watch, were not allowed to gain entry into the complex, as they barricaded the gate of the Assembly in a peaceful manner.

The Tide correspondence reports that the groups were councilors forum, environmental watch, Centre for African Development (CAD), Coalition for Youth Empowerment, Society for Accountability, Good Governance and Social Reform, Society for Justice and Economic Reform, Nigerian Network for Alternative Society (NIMAS) and Network for Justice and Equity.

The groups took their agitation on non-conduct of local government elections in Anambra State for the past seven years to the speaker, Anayo Nnebe, to compel the state government to conduct the council polls.

Before then, they had also marched in their hundreds to the state branch of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) in Awka.

According to our correspondent, the address prepared by the coalition was not read but finally delivered to the Deputy Speaker, Afam Obi, who praised them for not taking to violence over the issue.

Obi finally urged them to come back on Tuesday to meet the entire House, adding that their agitation was genuine.

The address, which was made available to The Tide correspondent, Friday, by the group reads: “In our local governments, we see our politicians suffer joblessness and hunger; we see offices that should have been created by the allowance of the constitutionally recommended administration through local government elections vacant, thereby worsening the joblessness situation and retarding our developmental pace.”

“We see our local government secretariats overgrown by weeds; our rural communities suffering, poor amenities, infrastructure and bad roads whose construction would have been the responsibility of a legitimate local government administration.”