Falana Blasts Fashola Over Aganga’s State of Origin

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014

…Speaks On Confab

Kayode Adelowokan, Lagos

The human right activist and Lagos base lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN, has censured Lagos state governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola over his comment on the citizen of Minister of Trade and Commerce, Olusegun Aganga.

Human Rights Lawyer Femi Falana

Governor Fashola who was speaking on the number of ministerial representative the state is having at the federal council at a town hall meeting with Lagosians said Mr. Aganga is not an indigene of Lagos and that it is only Senator Musiliu Obanikoro that is of Lagos origin.

Falana told African Examiner that anybody born anywhere is an indigene of the place, affirming that the meaning of indigene is to be born in a place.

In his word, “Under the constitution, there shall be no discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, place of birth, place of origin etc but for the leaders to keep Nigerians divided, claiming that they are legitimize is uncalled for.

“I challenged Fashola publicly that I am an Ekiti man but my children are Lagosian because they were born here, I pay my tax here and none of them have spent two weeks at a stretch in Ekiti. So, how will you say they are not Lagosian?

“Unless we challenge them, the act of impunity will continue to grow.

“When this same Fashola deported poor Igbo beggers, I challenged him, and I remind him that he’s a lawyer and that every Nigerians have a right to freedom of movement and place of residence. Meanwhile, when he did that, he has an Igbo man who was Commissioner for planning; planning the economy of the state, then, it became clear to me that the rich did not want the poor to survive.”

Speaking on the heavy tuition fee imposed on Lagos State University (LASU) students, the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) analysed that if state government is paying N18, 000 as minimum wage to all its staff, then it shows that none of the staff of LASU will be able to send their wards to the institution where the fee is N250, 0000 (two hundred and fifty thousand naira only).

On the national conference, Mr. Femi Falana disagreed with civil society organisations and labour unions who have decided not to be part of the ongoing national conference expressing believe that some of the organization cannot stay back and allow the ‘corrupt-rich’ people to decide the future of the ‘poor’ people.

“Now that we are having the crisis of capitalism which they turned to global meltdown, we must let Nigerians and the world know that the capitalism turning more people to be poor all over the world.”

He said though Nigeria is now rated the largest economy in Africa but said Nigeria is still having the largest number of poor people in Africa and the world.

He warned that every theater of the struggle must not be left in the hand of the ruling class.

“When some of us got into the national conference and realize what their plan was, we have formed an alliance of labour and civil society people to say the least we can take from here is the justification of Chapter 2 of the constitution which guarantee right to education, health, work for all Nigerians and anything short of that, we are going to write our own report”, he added.