Youths occupy NASS, protest delay of 2016 budget passage
Hundreds
of youths, under the aegis of Citizens United for Peace and Stability, CUPS,
yesterday stormed the National Assembly calling for immediate resignation of
Senate President, Saraki, on the allegations of corruption leveled against him
and controversies surrounding the 2016 budget yet to be signed into law.
Meanwhile,
the National Assembly leadership was, at press time, set to commence a meeting
with President Muhammadu Buhari in a move aimed towards resolving the crisis
arising from the passage of the 2016 budget.
This came as Senate Presiden’s
Senior Special Assistant on Youth Matters, Ikenga Ugochinyere, was yesterday,
arrested and detained by the Department of State Service, DSS.
The
National Assembly was literally sealed as hundreds of protesters, under the
aegis of Citizens United for Peace and Stability, CUPS, stormed the
complex calling for the immediate
resignation of Senate President, Bukola Saraki, on the allegations of
corruption levelled against him. However, another group of pro-Saraki protesters
said the trial of the Senate President at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT,
was another attempt to muzzle the Senate and pleaded with Nigerians to stand
against it.
The placard carrying anti-Saraki protesters accused the Senate
President of acts of corruption, citing his alleged false assets declaration
and alleged padding of the 2016 budget by legislators as well as the delay in
the President’s assent to the budget as reasons he should resign. The youths,
made up of civil society organisations and students, also demanded that the
federal lawmakers immediately revisit the grey areas identified in the 2016
budget by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Vanguard
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