We
have a list of demands,” Mr Effiong said. “And everything borders around good
governance.”
The
protesters said the demand had been broken down into three phases, each of
which contains a laundry of critical issues that must be addressed — failure
over which the protest would not cease.
*
First Bundle: End anti-people economic policies
*
Second Bundle: End special privileges for the ruling class
*
Third Bundle: Return political power and national wealth to the working people
The
details of these bundles include:
First
Bundle: End Anti-People Economic Policies:
*
Return of fuel prices and electricity tariffs to their levels in 1999, the
immediate repair of all the refineries, pipelines and fuel depots in Nigeria
and, an end to the importation of fuel.
*
End to estimated and inflated billing by the electricity distribution companies
and to their extortion of money from consumers for transformers, poles, cables,
etc.
*
No devaluation of the Naira.
*
End to the insecurity and constant bloodletting in the country but by methods
that respect human rights and justice and the sack of the current set of
service chiefs for their self-evident incompetence in their duties.
*
Abolition of tuition fees and inflated service charges in all public
universities and secondary schools.
*
Immediate payment of the N30,000 minimum wage, with annual increases pegged to
the rate of inflation and to the national average rate of profit of
multinational corporations operating in Nigeria and of all local private
companies employing more than 100 workers (irrespective of the contract status of
such workers).
*
The immediate release of all political prisoners, including Shi’ite leader
Ibrahim El-Zakzaky and his wife, and an immediate stop to the persecution of
people based on their political or religious beliefs or their ethnicity.
*
The immediate payment of all outstanding salaries of workers and pensions of
retirees.
*
The immediate implementation of all agreements the government and private
sector employers have signed with the trade unions at all levels and in all
sectors.
*
A massive public works and services program in every sector and level of the
economy as well as in the urban and rural areas to provide employment for
unemployed youths.
Second
Bundle: End Special Privileges for the Ruling Class:
*
All public officials in elective, appointive or senior administrative positions
must be banned from educating their children or dependants in private schools
in Nigeria or in schools in foreign countries.
*
These officials, their immediate family, and their dependants must be banned
also from obtaining healthcare in private hospitals in Nigeria or in hospitals
in foreign countries.
*
These officials must also receive basic salaries and allowances not higher than
those received by the highest paid professors in public Nigerian universities.
*
An immediate end to the use of police or military personnel as private security
guards for these officials.
*
Except for the president and governors, these officials and their immediate
family must not live in class-exclusive estates or other similar places of
residence but among the working people who they serve.
Third
Bundle: Return Political Power and National Wealth to the Working People:
*
The complete and uncompensated repossession by the working people of all
national resources stolen by the ruling class and their foreign masters through
the fraudulent privatisation of public resources since 1986.
*
The complete and uncompensated seizure by the working people of all private
wealth accumulated by public officials (as defined above) during and after
their tenure of service whose value exceeds their total lawful and demonstrable
income during and after that tenure.
*
The complete socialisation of all land in the country and declaration of access
to land as a basic right, by this means to break the monopoly of the ruling
class on ownership and access to land in the country and thus make land
available to the poor who live by farming and those who need to build their own
houses.
*
To break the stranglehold of the ruling class on political power by banning
from politics all who have stolen the people’s money and property since 1960
and those who have been in elective or appointive political office for more at
any time before and since 1999, ending the influence of money and god-fathers
in politics, imposing term-limits for national and state lawmakers, completely
liberating local governments from state government control, returning power
from the national and state levels to governing councils controlled by citizens
at the town, city, and village levels, etc.
*
To reduce the cost of governance by abolishing the Senate, thus establishing a
uni-cameral legislature with only the House of Representatives; and by
abolishing constituency projects to end the theft of public money through such
projects.
*
Abolishing the death penalty except for the embezzling or privatisation of the
public wealth.
*
Producing a new constitution for Nigeria by a democratic and people-led process
involving open discussion, debate, and determination of proposals and
suggestions by the working people in towns and villages, in factories, on
farms, in the Diaspora, on school campuses, in neighbourhoods, market places,
workplaces, mass media, social media, etc.
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