The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has called for the withdrawal of the Senior Advocate of Nigeria title of the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola.
Reacting to the statement made by Fashola on Wednesday, when he described the protest by the student body as illegal, NANS, in a statement, signed by its National Public Relations Officer, Giwa Temitope, asked the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee in Nigeria to withdraw Fashola’s SAN title.
It partly read, “We have been informed that the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, openly said that: ‘The right to protest is a very well-protected right in our Constitution, but it does not include the right to inflict pain and inconvenience on other people. And so, whilst the protests can go on, they should refrain from blocking the road in order to do their protests. That in itself is a violation of law.
“The statement above shows that the Minister is enmeshed in a big contradiction in terms of what the law says. He tries to trivialise a very important issue by watering down the law. Asides from the clear nature of the letters of Chapter four of the Constitution on Fundamental Human Rights, Fashola should tell us how a protest is stated to “inflict pain and inconvenience on other people?”
“As far as NANS is concerned, Fashola has long shown that he does not understand the laws of Nigeria. Same person, who has a SAN title to his name, went ahead to attempt to destroy evidences on the very crucial Lekki massacre. Nigerian youths do not respect Fashola and his fake ideals anymore. The best is for the Minister to go and make restitutions with the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari(retd.)’s government to pay ASUU now rather than appeal for a suspension of the protest we have begun.
“If Fashola continues to tongue-attack our protests, we would start preparing to prevent another attack on our movement,” NANS said.
The student body also called on the ASUU branch of the University of Benin to “start the process of withdrawing Fashola’s Law degree.
Recall that, NANS, on Tuesday, had embarked on a continuous protest grounding the traffic-laden Lagos-Ibadan Expressway as they demanded that the Federal Government resolved the ongoing strike action of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
