NDI ENUGU DESERVE A BETTER DEAL

With a heavy heart, I received the news of the fatal clashes between traders and agents of the Enugu State government under Governor Peter Mbah this Wednesday. The agents were trying to enforce the punitive sealing off of shops and business premises across Enugu for failing to open their businesses on Monday in compliance to a government directive that sought to put their lives in clear and present danger.

Regrettably, some lives were lost in the fracas while some residents went home with different degrees of injuries from the unfortunate clashes. 

The wholesale deployment of extreme violence to stifle dissent and stamp out the exercise of freewill in Enugu is condemnable. Our beloved Enugu State can and should be better than this.

Ndi Enugu, this incident is a sad reminder of the full weight of leadership and the overwhelming imperatives of having people with the right leadership temperament in positions of authority. The deployment of deadly force against innocent citizens for simply asking to be allowed the choice of when to run their businesses does not tell the world that our beloved Enugu is part of the 21st Century yet. It calls for a deep introspection and deliberate stocktaking. 

Citizens of different countries where democracy is practised enjoy a constitutional right to peaceful disagreement and protest. It is absurd that Enugu’s law-abiding citizens have lost their lives in a peaceful protest against a punitive measure that seeks to make genuine businesses pay a heavy price for opting to consider the safety of life and property first, in response to persistent threats in their business environment. 

I condole with the families of those who lost their lives in the mayhem, while I pray for the speedy recovery of those healing from bullet wounds and different degrees of injuries in several hospitals across the city.

Ndi Enugu reserves the right to continue to hold their political leaders to account because the constitutional rights of every Nigerian are the same across the 36 states of the federation. We cannot therefore accept a democracy less perfect than the one our fellow citizens enjoy in other states in Nigeria.

Ndi Enugu should continue to pray for a divine intervention in the ongoing litigation at the Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Enugu to ensure that the final judgement will correct the political anomaly currently holding sway in our beloved Enugu State.

— Kachifoo Nwobodo lives in Enugu