Human rights activist, Femi Falana (SAN), has warned the Nigerian government and politicians not to provoke citizens to mutiny.
Falana issued the warning while speaking at the National Symposium themed: “Nigeria Economy and the Crisis of Survival: Robbing the Poor to Pay the Rich” organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Thursday in Abuja.
Falana lamented that the poor are asked to tighten their belts and suffer the burden of the economic issues in the nation, while public officials keep spending lavishly.
He warned that as long as figures of extravagant spending by the National Assembly continue to be churned out, Nigerians will be irritated and so will be enemies of democracy.
“The latest provocative news from the National Assembly is that 54 billion naira has been earmarked for constituency projects for 360 members of the House of Representatives. It has come to 150 million per person under this austere condition of the country.
“So when these figures are oozing out of the National Assembly Nigerians are being provoked and enemies of democracy are being provoked.
“The military has been honest to say that they are under pressure to dismantle this rickety political system but someone told them to go and deny it and they came out and denied it. But we can read between the lines. We can’t gather here to talk about democracy that is under threat.
“The immediate causes of coups in Africa today are third term syndromes, manipulation of constitution, military bases.
“Today, America has 29 military bases in Africa. France has 15. Soldiers are protesting because numbers of these foreign bases are receiving salaries as if they are in their countries. So the soldiers are protesting the preferential treatment between them and these foreign troops , so we must look at that.
“The remote causes are the ruthless exploitation of the mineral resources of our country by western countries,” he said. (Daily Sun)
