MILITARY DEPLOYED IN LAGOS
Monday the 16th of January saw the deployment of Military personnel all over Lagos from the early hours of the morning. They set up roadbloacks and check points at strategic points calculated to deter protesters following the NLC directive that public demonstrations had been cancelled. Most of the military force was concentrated on the Gani Fawehinmi Park which had been the biggest rallying point for the protests against the removal of fuel subsidies by government on the first day of 2012. This move was however decried by Lagos State Governer, Babatunde Raji Fashola who asserted that the situation did not warrant it and urged the Federal Government to take the soldiers of the streets of Lagos.

NLC ACCEPTS N97, CALLS OFF STRIKE
Following closed door negotiations that resulted in a directive cancelling public demonstrations, organised Labour emerged and called off the mass strike action in its entirety. The decision came sometime around noon and provoked a flurry of mixed reactions in its wake from the general public and civil society groups who declared that they had not been adequately consulted. Labour claims that the price of N97 was a unilateral decision of the government.

CIVIL SOCIETY GROUPS REJECT N7, SAYS LABOUR SIDELINED THEM
Civil society groups yesterday asserted their rejection of government’s new fuel price and their continued opposition of what they have termed as an undemocratic policy. They insisted that Labour did not consult them before deciding that the strike would be called off. The prominent civil society group, Save Nigeria Group issued a statement yesterday rejecting the new fuel price and have called a press conference by 12.00pm to outline their agenda going forward.

MEDIA CENSORSHIP?
YNaija first broke the news that former CNN correspondent, Christian Purefoy was temporarily detained by Military personnel at Ojota. Soon after that, Fidelis Mbah, CNN Lagos staff tweeted that the SSS had just forced their way into their offices, all suggesting that the government might be concerned about keeping the media on a short leash.

PROTESTS, PROTESTERS DETERRED BY GUNSHOTS AND TEARGAS
In Lagos, protesters who came out disregarding Labour’s stay at home directive were met with resistance by the Military. For the ones on the way to the Gani Fawehinmi Park, Ojota, it took the discharge of live fire-arms by Military stationed at the Palmgrove pedestrian bridge on Ikorodu road to deter the protesters from continuing towards their objective. In a comment by one tweep in the situation, they were retreating but not surrendering.

DON JAZZY TAKES HEAT OVER GEJ ENDORSEMENT
While a lot of celebs have been catching heat for endorsing the President’s 2011 candidacy, Don Jazzy was practically getting thrown under the bus on Twitter for his overt involvement in the affair. Between the negative tweets and those in defence of him, the Mo’Hits maestro trended worldwide in third place for a brief period, another milestone for the award winning producer.