Date Published: 01/10/10

Stop harassing Newspaper Vendors, HURIWA tells Aliero

Following the ongoing crackdown by the Federal Capital Environmental Task Force against newspaper vendors on the major streets of the nation’s capital and the consequential economic adversities and joblessness unleashed on this category of young Nigerians, a call has gone to the minister of the federal Capital Territory Adamu Muhammad Aliero to call his men to order and halt the regime of arbitrary arrest, intimidation, harassment and illegal detention of newspaper vendors in Abuja.

In that connection, the recent repatriation of street children and beggars to their states of origin by the Federal Capital Territory administration headed by the current minister constitute a gross violation of the human rights of these Nigerians since Abuja is a home for all, constitutionally.

HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS’ ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA, HURIWA, a democracy inclined and development focused non-governmental body which reviewed the development criticized the federal capital territory administration for carrying out anti-democratic policy of seeking to stop the larger population of Nigerians from enjoying their constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression because according to it, the ongoing crackdown on newspaper vendors from the streets of Abuja is targeted at curtailing the enjoyment of the freedom of the press and expression by the larger number of citizens that rely so much from newspaper stories for information. HURIWA accused the Abuja administrators of seeking to curtail peoples’ access to information through the press on the current state of health of President Umaru Musa Yar’adua who has stayed away from public glare for over forty days on medical grounds.

In a statement endorsed by its National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the human rights body which stated that the activities of the newspaper vendors in the streets of Abuja has in no way constituted any environment hazards advised the Federal Capital Territory administrators to concentrate her attention towards providing affordable houses to the tens-of-thousands of indigent inhabitants of the nation’s capital who have now been rendered internally displaced persons by the activities of the Abuja Planning Department following the ongoing massive demolition of certain living structures considered by the authorities as illegal, rather than keep increasing the number of young Nigerians in the labour markets by the action of harassing and driving away newspaper vendors from their lawful duties to Nigerians.

Citing section 16 [2] [c] of the 1999 constitution which provides that ‘’the state shall direct its policy towards ensuring that the economic system is not operated in such a manner as to permit the concentration of wealth or means of production and exchange in the hands of few individuals or of a group’’, HURIWA averred that the ongoing mass arrest and harassment of Abuja-based newspaper vendors by armed security personnel embedded with the officials of the Abuja Environmental Protection Agency on the orders of the minister is an attempt to concentrate wealth in the hands of only large scale investors to the detriment of petty traders like newspaper vendors who according to the group are actually carrying out social service by selling newspapers that will empower the people with qualitative information on how they are governed by political office holders. HURIWA faulted the claim by the minister of Abuja that newspaper vendors in the streets of Abuja cause vehicle accidents and challenged him to produce verifiable documentary evidence to prove his assertion. The group also stated that the activities of the newspaper vendors by lawfully selling their newspapers and magazines are indirectly contributing to the positive actualization of the freedom of the press enshrined in section 22 of the constitution because if people are prevented from reading newspapers, then Government has denied them of enjoying the fruits of freedom of the press which is constitutionally protected.

On the recent repatriation of beggars from the streets of Abuja to their states of origin, the group condemned the practice as a violation of the original statutory provisions which created Abuja as the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria which means that the nation’s capital is home for all Nigerians.

The group stated that it was not opposed to any move that will sanitize the streets of hoodlums and other miscreants but advised the Federal Capital Territory Administration to enforce the environmental laws with a human face and not to humiliate fellow human beings as if they have no human dignity because of their poverty stricken status. HURIWA also called on the Federal Capital Territory administrators to provide workable rehabilitation/vocational homes in Abuja for beggars removed from the streets of the nation’s capital. ‘’Beggars caught on the streets of Abuja should be rehabilitated and can only be repatriated strictly on voluntary basis since the constitution does not permit government officials to expel any citizen away from any part of the federation,’’ HURIWA stated.