Nigerian Youth Movement For Peace, Empowerment and Transformation (NYMPET) on Wednesday in Abuja carried out a peaceful protest to the National Assembly, demanding for true leadership in the country.
NYMPET, an NGO, is an umbrella body of over 20 groups that are into peace advocacy and empowerment initiatives for the transformation of the nation.
President of the movement, Mr. Bishop Amakiri, said the protest was to express youth’s dissatisfaction on some issues affecting the development of democracy in the country.
He said that the movement felt the need to rise up to the manifestation of impunity and the violation of the rule of law among leadership, to defend the country’s hard earned democracy.
“Having being part of nurturing our present democratic experience, we feel that it would dire to bear if we just sit down and watch the unpatriotic actions of political leaders trying to truncate our hard won democracy. We need a good leadership to emulate. This is not the kind of leadership that our founding fathers like Obafemi Awolowo, Namdi Azikwe and Tafawa Balewa, among others, left for us. The founding fathers respected the rule of law of this country but what we are seeing today is full of impunity,’’ Amakiri said.
He, however, called on the leadership of the House of Representatives to reconvene the house to attend to urgent issues of national importance such as the insurgency in the North-East.
Commenting on the defection of Speaker, Aminu Tambuwa from the Peoples Democratic Party to All Progressives Congress, APC, Amakiri called on Tambuwal to apologise to the nation.
“As citizens of this country, we are concerned about what Tambuwal, the fourth citizen of the country, has done to the constitution that he was sworn-in to protect.
We are not concerned about his defection from PDP but for violating the constitution,’’ he said.
He, however, said that the protest was not politically-motivated or sponsored by any individual but to protect the future of the country.
The group was, however, denied access into the National Assembly premises.
Mr Tukur Adamu, representing Alkaleri/Kirfi Federal Constituencies, Bauchi State, who addressed the movement, urged the youth to keep calm as house members from the north east were already discussing the issue.
Adamu said the issue of insurgency in the North-East was of national importance and the house members were also disturbed about it.