How we were stopped from attending Middle Belt summit – Nwodo attacks Buhari

Some members of the Southern and Middle Belt Forum, led by Chief Edwin
Clark, were on Monday in Abuja stopped from traveling to Makurdi, the
capital of Benue State to attend the Middle Belt summit on
restructuring.

They reported that their chartered flight was stopped from flying to
the Benue State capital under the pretence of security clearance.

Spokesperson for the group, who is also the President General of
Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief John Nwodo, said the elders spent about five
hours at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, trying to
obtain a clearance to make the journey but were refused by the
Commandant of the Makurdi Airport, whose name was given as Lt.
Commander A. Audu.

He regretted that the clearance was not given, accusing the Buhari-led
government of running a military system.

Nwodo said, "We arrived in time for our flight today at 12 noon, the
airport commandant disallowed us from flying and said we needed to go
and get permission to land in Makurdi.

"We consider this fundamental infringement on our democratic rights of
freedom of movement and freedom of association. There is nothing in
our law precluding us from moving to wherever we like, from holding an
opinion in so far as we do not breach any law in Nigeria.

"What has happened to us today expresses a lot of doom for fundamental
human rights in our country, for the free exchange of ideas as
unavoidable instruments of achieving growth and development of our
polity.

"We deprecate the treatment that we were given today, which prevented
us from physically joining our brethren in the Middle Belt in a common
view which we all hold, a very patriotic view, which we think will be
the only way to guarantee the future of our country."

Nwodo, who spoke in the company of other members of the group at the
Abuja residence of Clark, said that all they wanted was to show
solidarity with the Middle Belt people who he said had supported the
forum.

He added, "The people that you saw on the television in the Middle
Belt are our brethren who showed us solidarity in other zonal summits.
The fact that we were barred from showing them this solidarity is
bound to hurt them.

"Through this press conference, we want to express our solidarity with
them. We want them to know that we are one and the same in our views
of the restructuring of the federation

"Secondly, (we need) to deprecate this new tendency. Not too long ago,
the President signed into law an Executive order, which gives him the
right to seize people's assets. This is almost like a military
government. And we think that this is an intrusion into the principles
of separation of powers in our country.

"It is the responsibilities of the legislature to make law, of the
executive to implement the law and the judiciary to interpret the law.
I do not think that Section 5 of the Constitution gives the President
such executive authority to make laws."