2 protesting groups clash at national assembly

Two groups of protesters on Tuesday clashed at the national assembly.

One group, ‘OccupyNASS’, had taken over the main entrance of the national assembly before another group, ‘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 TheCable, 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 speaking with TheCable, 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.”