Hardship: Govt officials panic, police on red alert over planned nationwide protest
As hardship bites harder, some Nigerian youths plan nationwide protests beginning from August 1-10, 2024, Dominion News Agency gathered.
The protest, which is currently gaining traction in the North and other parts of the country, is aimed at drawing the attention of governments at all levels to the plight of the citizens.
Dominion News Agency reports that since the current administration took off in May 2023 when President Bola Tinubu announced the abolition of fuel subsidy, there has been an untoward hardship in the country.
This has led to calls for the reversal of some policies of the government believed to have birthed the hardship.
Dominion News Agency recalls that angry youths and women had on February 9, 2024, taken to the streets of Minna, the Niger State capital, and Kano to protest the astronomical rise in prices of food and other essential commodities in the market.
In a similar vein, some civil society groups, including the Take It Back Movement, the Education Rights Campaign, the Coalition for Revolution and the Socialist Workers League on June 12, protested against the surging cost of living, insecurity and other challenges facing the nation.
The protesters, who stormed the streets in some Southwestern states, wielded placards that had inscriptions like: ‘President Tinubu, let the poor breathe’, ‘Payment of living wage to all Nigerian workers now, ‘End Insecurity,’ ‘Nationalise the power sector,’ and ‘Reverse Fee Hikes Now,” among others.
The planned August protest
The protest is scheduled to take place in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.
While some of the organizers, particularly from the northern region, remain anonymous, the 2023 presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, AAC, Omoyele Sowore has been campaigning for the August protest via his social media handles.
Sowore, who had led several protests in the country, said revolution would start in August, insisting that “Nothing Can Stop An Idea Whose Time Has Come” #RevolutionNOW.”
Sowore wrote: “The REVOLUTION is now knocking on our doors! #RevolutionNow. Let everyone rise all once in August 2024!
“Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come. They asked for a revolution and It is here now! @officialABAT once asked for a revolution, even @MBuhari once asked for a revolution and Nigerians now want a real revolution.
“Nothing Can Stop An Idea Whose Time Has Come” #RevolutionNOW.”
Similarly, a flyer making the rounds on social media titled: “End Bad Government in Nigeria 2024” by anonymous groups, ascribed the planned protest to 10 policies of the government, which according to them have imposed unexpected hardship on Nigerians.
Among other demands, the group urged the government to “end subsidy scam and reverse fuel price to below N300 per litter, bring tertiary education fees back to their previous rates, restore electricity tariff to affordable levels for the public, return import duties to their previous rates, publicly disclose and reduce the salaries and allowances of all Senators, House of Representative members, reform EFCC.”
Police moves to halt protest in leaked memo
The Nigeria Police Force is allegedly initiating plans to halt the planned protest.
The police, in an internal memo sighted by DAILY POST correspondent said “some groups are mobilizing for mass protest nationwide beginning from 1 to 10 2024”.
The memo, dated July 8 and copied to zonal Assistant Inspectors-General of Police, urged the operatives to be proactive and “mobilize well kitted and equipped personnel” ahead of the protest.
“INGENPOL directs you to be proactive, mobilize well kitted and equipped personnel, synergize with other sister agencies and the military, takeover all strategic points in your AOR, deploy undercover for intelligent gathering, disperse unlawful gatherings, be in heart-to-heart conversation with community stakeholders, no form of protest must be allowed during the period,” it said.
A popular social commentator and investigative journalist, @PIDOMNIGERIA posted the leaked memo on his verified X handle.
Efforts by Dominion News Agency to reach the Force Public Relations Officer, Olumuyiwa Adejobi over the matter was unsuccessful as he could not take his call and failed to respond to all text messages sent to his phone.
Fear grips government officials
The planned nationwide protest has instilled fear in Nigerian public officer holders, especially lawmakers who are fidgeting over possible attack on them.
Dominion News Agency reports that the Nigerian Senate on Tuesday engaged in a panic debate, expressing fear of attacks by angry Nigerians who are bedeviled by the prevailing hardship.
The lawmakers expressed fear that the angry Nigerians may resort to attack and revolt against public office holders.
The debate followed a motion, titled: “Urgent Need to address Food Insecurity and Market Exploitation of Consumables in Nigeria”, sponsored by Senator Sunday Karimi Steve representing Kogi West Senatorial District and co-sponsored by Senator Ali Ndume Mohammed representing Borno South Senatorial District.
Former Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, after commending the mover of the motion submitted that Nigerians have exhausted their patience and may come after them if nothing was done in quick time due to acute hunger.
“If we don’t take immediate action, we will lose the power and our citizens under the situation of increased fuel price, increased electricity price, increased everything and we are yet to get the right measures to provide questions for our constituents.
“We wouldn’t like the kind of thing that we see in our streets and it is time that we take every possible action to get out of the arms of the government to ensure that food floods our country, the right food”, he said.
A few days earlier, former lawmaker Shehu Sani had warned the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio not to pass a route in Wuse 2, in the FCT over protesting Nigerians.
Sani said he recently encountered protesters in Wuse 2, carrying placards against ‘hunger in the land’.
The former lawmaker said some of the protesters among them recognized him and allowed him to pass.
However, Sani suggested in the post that Akpabio might not be given a free pass by the protesters. He, therefore, advised the Senate President not to go through Wuse 2.
He wrote: “I just passed a group of protesters in Wuse 2, carrying placards against ‘hunger in the land’. Some ladies among them recognized me and shouted “No be that Afro Senator be that”, I answered “yes na me the former Senator”; then they responded “Oya pass”. Make Akpabio no pass there o.
Meanwhile, a chieftain of the Labour Party, Mr Kayode Oyeniran told Dominion News Agency in Abuja that “if the protest is allowed to hold, government officials may have to find where they will hide themselves.
“The truth is that Nigerians are angry. For the past few months now, there has been debates on the salaries and allowances of the Federal lawmakers.
“I don’t know how much they earn but the way it is painted in public, many Nigerians now see them as their number one enemies.
“It is my prayer that the organizers find other means of expressing their grievances. It must not always be a protest. You see what is happening in Kenya?
“Both the government and the protesters are having a bad time. Protests most times make things worse”, he said.
Oneyiran, however, stated that “sometimes you can’t blame these people. They have had enough and have been patient enough.
“Since 2023, the government has only been making promises. The Port Harcourt refinery that they said would work last year December, I don’t think it is functioning now.
“They said when the CNG vehicles are rolled out, prices of goods will crash, where are the vehicles? How long would Nigerians wait? People are suffering.
“People have come to a level where they are no longer afraid of anything. If you stay back, you may die of hunger and if you protest you may die, so they will tell you that it is better to protest and die. We have never had it like this”.
Meanwhile, in his own opinion, the President General of the Coalition of South East Youth Leaders, COSEYL, Goodluck Ibem urged Nigerian youths to jettison the planned protest and channel their energy to something useful.
In a chat with Dominion News Agency on Saturday, Ibem said, “Nigerian youths should redirect the energy they want to use for protest into farming and full time agriculture.
“That is the major way to end hunger and food scarcity.
“Many of our farmlands are not cultivated even when we have so many youths. They only want white collar jobs, which are not available.
“We have to remain positive here. Hunger cannot disappear if we fail to embrace farming as a culture and lifestyle.
That is the bitter truth”.
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