Ngozi James
Civil Rights Advocacy Group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has warned the National Assembly against negative, draconian and undemocratic legislations to avoid imminent implosion and nation-wide protests like the year 2020 #ENDSARS Protests.
The Rights group dismissed as draconian and a celebration of Idiocy for the National Assembly to ever contemplate making legislations that are unconstitutional such as stopping workers in the health sector from embarking on strike action or the law against access to social media by Nigerians.
In a statement, the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Director Miss Zainab Yusuf argued that even without Constitutional democracy, it does not make sense for a country to have a law constraining any section of its workforce to operate like slaves in the twenty first century World.
HURIWA therefore kicked against the bill, before the House of Representatives, seeking to stop health workers from embarking on strike, describing the proposed piece of legislation as an incurable breach of the principles of freedom of association as contained in the Constitution of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
“Nigerians from all walks of life are worried that the weak leadership in both the senate and the Federal House of Representatives and the way both the speaker and senate president go Cap-In–hand bowing to President Buhari and accepting and passing all kinds of draconian bills against Nigerians will lead to a nation-wide demands for the abolition of the legislature soon,” the group warned.
HURIWA reminded the Senator Ahmed Lawan led Senate that with his kind of “slavish leadership of the Upper legislative chamber”, Nigerians may begin by canvassing the abolition of the Senate so Nigeria runs a unicameral legislature like Senegal whereby the Senate was abolished not long ago in 2001 after Abdoulaye Wade won the Presidential poll.