Pro and anti Saraki protesters clash at national assembly

There was confusion Tuesday at the National
Assembly complex in Abuja, Nigeria as two
groups of protesters clashed at the assembly
complex.
The first group, identified as ‘OccupyNASS’,
had taken over the main entrance of the
national assembly before another group,
identified as ‘Save Our National Assembly’,
brought a counter-protest to the venue.
While OccupyNASS made critical demands on
the national assembly, Save Our National
Assembly was in solidarity with Bukola Saraki,
president of the senate, and Yakubu Dogara,
speaker of the federal house of
representatives.
The pro-national assembly protesters
displayed banners urging the federal
government to stop harassing Saraki, who is
undergoing trial at the code of conduct
tribunal (CCT) for alleged false assets
declaration.
The coordinator of OccupyNASS, Retson
Tedheke, had earlier spoken with the media
spelling out the demands of his group.
One of the demands is that the senate must
return the 36 Land Cruisers it bought for
N35.1m each.
But the coordinator of the pro-Saraki group,
Phil Robert, claimed that his group was
assaulted by the other group for no reason.
He said that protest against the national
assembly was being coordinated by touts and
thugs.
“We are calling on Nigerians to wake up and
not be used by politicians,” he said.
“We came here today, and saw a group of
touts. They came and started beating us up.
They even injured one woman. It was really
bad. There is fuel scarcity and dollar is rising
every day, why have they not gone to occupy
the villa.

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