Headline

Pro-June 12 Group Seeks National Dialogue, People’s Constitution

Published

1 year ago

June 9, 2024

The June 12 Pro-Democracy Movement of Nigeria says President Bola Tinubu must facilitate a process of national dialogue and consultation that will give birth to a democratic people’s constitution.

The convener of the movement, Mr Wale Okunniyi, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday ahead of the commemoration of the 31st anniversary of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election.

Okunniyi spoke on how Tinubu could gladden the hearts of June 12 activists under his tenure.

According to him, if the President can show commitment to national dialogue that will lead to true federal constitution in his administration, it will go down in history and become memorable.

Okunniyi said that the President, by so doing, would be actualising the hope late Chief MKO Abiola, the winner of the annulled election, stood and died for.

“The critical thing that will make meaning for us with Tinubu’s administration to further entrench June 12 Hope ’93 of MKO Abiola, is for the current President to immediately facilitate a process of national dialogue and consultation that will lead to the birth of constituents assembly that can give us a people’s constitution.

“The only thing, which will make him immortalise the struggle of June 12, MKO Abiola and the National Democratic Coalition, which he (Tinubu) was a member of, is for him to do this.

“The only record that will be memorable with Tinubu’s administration with regard to the June 12 struggle and democracy is to facilitate a process for national discussion and dialogue.

“If the President can do this to give Nigeria a new people’s constitution that is generated from a democratic discussion, that can never forever be erased in history,” Okunniyi said.

According to him, the movement will mobilise June 12 activists and stakeholders for a national discussion on how democracy can work for the people in commemoration of the 31st anniversary.

He said that the present civil rule had only limited features and benefits of democracy in the practice.

“For us as leaders of the June 12 pro-democracy movement, it is our duty to organise the Nigerian people to further consolidate the present nascent democracy of Nigeria.

“This is to bring to memory the struggles and what we have done to bring about what we have now as civil rule or democratic governance.

“We are putting these in focus in this year’s June 12, we are refocusing on generating a democratic people’s constitution for Nigeria and securing the destiny and future of Nigeria,” he said.

Okunniyi said that the 2024 anniversary would be chaired by Chief Emeka Anyaoku, former Commonwealth Secretary General, while the keynote would be given by Dr Kayode Fayemi,a former governor of Ekiti.

“Our message and focus for this year while celebrating the June 12 anniversary is how to generate and actualise a democratic people’s constitution for Nigeria that can be given to Nigerians through an elected constituent assembly.

“What we have today, that is generating crisis in Nigeria, is the Decree 24 of 1999, which is not essentially generated and produced by the Nigerian people,” he said.

He said that Nigerians must stay faithful to the struggle and the cause for a new democratic people’s constitution for the nation to move forward.

According to him, without a democratic constitution, Nigeria cannot say it has democracy, hence the reason democracy is not serving the people at the moment.

“What we have today doesn’t reflect Hope’93. MKO Abiola cannot be happy with what is happening in the nation now as democracy,” he said.

He said that at the death of MKO Abiola, NADECO demanded two things – a government of national unity and Sovereign National Conference to give birth to a people’s constitution.

He said that a diverse country like Nigeria would not progress without a national dialogue (conference), “where we come to agree to the terms of the existence of where we want to co-habit.”

The PUNCH reports that June 12 is significant in Nigeria’s history as it marks the anniversary of the 1993 presidential election, which was won by Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola but later annulled by the military government.

Abiola’s victory and the subsequent annulment led to political unrest and eventually the return of democratic rule in Nigeria in 1999.

(NAN)

Headline

Militia Attack On DRC IDP Camp, Kills 10, Mostly Women, Children

Published

11 hours ago

June 27, 2025

Editor

An armed group at the centre of a long-running ethnic conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s northeast attacked a camp for displaced people on Friday, killing 10, local sources told AFP.

Bordering Uganda, Ituri province has for years been the scene of pitched battles between the Lendu, a group mainly made up of settled farmers, and the Hema people, typically nomadic herders.

The fighting has led to the deaths of thousands of civilians and the mass displacement of many more.

Friday’s assault on the Djangi displaced persons camp was carried out by the self-proclaimed Cooperative for the Development of Congo (Codeco), a Lendu-aligned militia responsible for previous civilian massacres, the camp’s head told AFP.

“They were many and armed with firearms and machetes. They surprised us, they killed 10 displaced people, most of them women and children,” said Richard Likana.

An employee of the Red Cross, who asked to remain anonymous, confirmed the attack, which took place around 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Bunia.

“They were cut up with machetes while others were shot,” the humanitarian worker added.

Congolese army Colonel Ruffin Mapela, the local administrator for Djugu territory where the camp is located, gave the same toll of 10 dead and put the number of injured at 15.

According to local and humanitarian sources, Codeco was responsible for an attack on February 10 which killed 51 people in Ituri province. Most of the victims were also displaced persons.

That raid was said to be a response to a strike by the rival Hema-led Zaire militia in the same area.

Violence between the Hema and Lendu killed thousands in gold-rich Ituri from 1999-2003, which only ended after European forces intervened.

The conflict erupted again in 2017, killing thousands more.

The violence has led to more than 1.5 million people leaving their homes, according to the UN.

AFP

Headline

Israel Wants Global Action Against Iran’s Nuclear Plans

Published

11 hours ago

June 27, 2025

Editor

Israel’s foreign minister said on Friday that the world was obliged to stop Iran from developing an atomic bomb, days after Israel claimed it had “thwarted Iran’s nuclear project” in a 12-day war.

“Israel acted at the last possible moment against an imminent threat to itself, the region, and the international community,” Gideon Saar wrote on X.

“The international community must now prevent, by any effective means, the world’s most extreme regime from obtaining the most dangerous weapon.”

Israel and Iran each claimed victory in the war that ended with a ceasefire on June 24.

The conflict erupted on June 13 when Israel launched a bombing campaign, stating it aimed to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon—an ambition Iran has consistently denied.

Following waves of Israeli attacks on nuclear and military sites, the United States bombed three key facilities, with President Donald Trump insisting it had set Iran’s nuclear programme back by “decades”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an address to the nation after the ceasefire, announced that “we have thwarted Iran’s nuclear project”.

However, there is no consensus as to how effective the strikes were.
On Friday, Iran rejected a request by UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi to visit the bombed facilities, saying it suggested “malign intent”.

The comments from Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi came after parliament approved a bill suspending cooperation with the UN watchdog.

In a post on X following the move, Saar said Iran “continues to mislead the international community and actively works to prevent effective oversight of its nuclear programme”.

Headline

We Would Have Killed Iran’s Supreme Leader If Given Opportunity – Israel

Published

14 hours ago

June 27, 2025

Editor

Defence Minister Israel Katz told media that Israel would have killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the war between the two countries if the opportunity had presented itself.

“If he had been in our sights, we would have taken him out,” Katz told Israel’s public radio station Kan Thursday evening, adding that the military had “searched a lot”.

“Khamenei understood this, went very deep underground, broke off contact with the commanders… so in the end it wasn’t realistic,” Katz told Kan.

He told Israeli television Channel 13 Thursday that Israel would cease its assassination attempts because “there is a difference between before the ceasefire and after the ceasefire”.

Katz had said during the war that Khamenei “can no longer be allowed to exist”, just days after reports that Washington vetoed Israeli plans to assassinate him.

But on Kan, Katz advised Khamenei to remain inside a bunker.

“He should learn from the late Nasrallah, who sat for a long time deep in the bunker”, he said, referring to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah’s former leader Hassan Nasrallah, who Israel killed in a Beirut air strike in September 2024.

The movements of the supreme leader, who has not left Iran since he took power, are subject to the tightest security and secrecy.

Katz said Thursday that Israel maintained its aerial superiority over Iran and that it was ready to strike again.

“We won’t let Iran develop nuclear weapons and threaten (Israel) with long-range missiles”, he said.

In his Channel 12 interview, Katz admitted that Israel does not know the location of all of Iran’s enriched uranium, but that its air strikes had destroyed the Islamic republic’s uranium enrichment capabilities.

“The material itself was not something that was supposed to be neutralised,” he said of the enriched uranium.

The impact of Israeli and US strikes on Iran’s nuclear programme has been a subject to debate.

A leaked US intelligence assessment estimated the programme to have set Iran back a few months, while Katz and other Israeli and US public figures said the damage would take years to rebuild.

Israel and Iran each claimed victory in a 12-day war that ended with a ceasefire on June 24.

The war erupted on June 13 when Israel launched a bombing campaign that it said aimed to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon — an ambition Iran has consistently denied.