A Federal High Court in Lagos has declared as unlawful the restriction of citizens’ movement during the monthly Lagos enviromental sanitation exercise.
Justice Mohammed Idris, in a judgment delivered on Monday, held that such restriction of movement, in the name of sanitation, amounted to a violation of the citizens’ right to personal liberty and freedom of movement protected by sections 35 and 41 of the Constitution.
He therefore voided the power of the Lagos State Government and its agent to arrest any citizen found moving between 7am and 10am on the last Saturday of every month when the enviromental sanitation exercise is observed. (Source: Punch)
Hey! What message is being sent to Lagosians, or, rather, to Nigerians. The electioneering propaganda seems to be churning out various approaches to subterfuge and indirect sabotage to one or other political focus. The environmental sanitation has a usbstantial historical and constitutional awareness for Nigerians in general. Why is it now that a ‘judge’ sees it as deprivation of liberty and freedom of movement? Sounds ambiguous and question-begging.
The question that jumps to mind is: The WAI agenda was initiated during general Buhari’s regime, part of which included the sanitation exercise nationally. Why would people want to discredit a credible national safety and well-being engagement?
Makes one ponder if we are actually thinking with our feet grounded. If this is politically motivated, then it is flawed, blatantly and questions should be asked of the ‘judge-proponent’, the rationale for this very lame and ambiguous claim.
Just like the sudden near-subjugation of Boko Haram, which sounds a note of orchestration on the part of the government: how did it just happen ‘overnight’ while it has taken some years of bewilderment and ponder on Nigerians, particularly the millions of dependant and displaced victims, not to mention tens of thousands of accountable lives and the ‘unaccounted for’. To the international community, as well as enlightened groups, the sudden ‘ease’ with which the recovery and victory of the joint forces emerged begs the question of whether the government, and the forces had any concrete strategic road map effective enough to combat the insurgency of Boko Haram; or the fact remains there is some ideological plausibility in what former general, late Sanni Abacha once said that for any insurgency to last more than 2 months, then the government has a hand in it.
So who are we fooling, or, who is fooling who?
My surmise is that many Nigerians are keeping silent until the right time to ‘scream’, or for self preservation because the line between democracy and autocracy seems convoluted at the moment – see states like Ekiti as one to be carefully studied for its socio-political approaches.