The Southern and Middle Belt
Forum says they were prevented from travelling to Benue state on Monday.
They said they were prevented
from going to Benue state by one A. Audu, commandant of the state’s airport,
from Abuja.
Speaking with journalists, John
Nwodo (pictured), secretary of the group and president-general of Ohanaeze
Ndigbo, described the act as an infringement of their fundamental human rights.
“We arrived in time for our
flight today at 12 noon, the airport commandant disallowed us from flying and
said we needed to go and get permission to land in Makurdi,” Nwodo said.
“We consider this fundamental
infringement on our democratic rights of freedom of movement and freedom of
association. There is nothing in our law precluding us from moving to wherever
we like, from holding an opinion in so far as we do not breach any law in
Nigeria.
“What has happened to us today
expresses a lot of doom for fundamental human rights in our country, for the
free exchange of ideas as unavoidable instruments of achieving growth and
development of our polity.
“We deprecate the treatment that
we were given today, which treatment prevented us from physical joining our
brethren in the middle belt in a common view which we all hold, a very
patriotic view, which we think will be the only way to guarantee the future of
our country.”
On his part, Yinka Odumakin,
Afenifere spokesman, said they were told of the landing issue as they were
about to make payments for their flight.
“As we were about to make
payments, they now said there was landing permit issues. They called the
commandant in Makurdi, who said they should send application,” he said
“The chief of staff to the Benue
state governor said we should fax the application to him and to the commandant.
“We waited at the airport for
hours. Eventually, the chief of staff had to contact the commandant in Makurdi
and was told that the landing permit requested by the first airline was still
on their table. At that stage, General C. Ariyo Niege, a veteran ex-soldier,
who was head of Nigerian military forces in Sudan, went to the commandant in
Abuja.”
Edwin Clark and other leaders of
the forum gave their goodwill messages to the summit via a telephone call.
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