- #EndBadGovernance Committee Vows to Continue Protest
- CSO Expresses Readiness to Dialogue
- Youth Groups, Soyinka, CNPP Pick Holes in Speech
- Protesters Press on
August 05, (THEWILL) – Youth groups, Civil Society Organizations, associations, #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria Committee and Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka have continued to express discordant tunes in the Sunday dawn broadcast by President Bola Tinubu in the wake of the nationwide protest against fuel subsidy, high cost of living, huge cost of governance among other demands by the protesters. Some pick holes in the address while others support the president’s call for dialogue.
The president had called on the protesters to suspend their protest and embrace dialogue, restated the ongoing reforms of his administration to reposition the economy, sympathized with victims and blamed unnamed enemies of democracy for instigating the protests.
He expressed sorrow over the lives lost during the protests, called for an end to violence and suspension of the protests for dialogue to take place. Stating that his decision to remove fuel subsidies and reform the foreign exchange system were necessary to “reverse the decades of economic mismanagement,” he canvassed fiscal Improvements whereby “aggregate government revenues have more than doubled, hitting over N9.1 trillion in the first half of 2024 compared to the first half of 2023, while infrastructure development such as the ongoing Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Sokoto-Badagry Highway, oil and gas sector revival, compressed natural gas initiative have since begun.
Other areas he highlighted included youth empowerment programmes such as the student loan scheme, digital and creative enterprises programme, and various skill development schemes, housing projects and food security measures. The President concluded by urging unity and patience, stating, “Let us work together to build a brighter future for ourselves and for generations to come. Let us choose hope over fear, unity over division, and progress over stagnation.”
In a statement made available to THE WILL on Sunday evening, the organizing committee of the #Endbadgovernance protest said that after careful review of the president’s address, they have come to the conclusion that the next phase of their struggle will be determined by how the government responds to their demand in days ahead.
Spokespersons of the #EndbadgovernanceInNigeria Committee, Hassan Taiwo Soweto, Ayoyinka Oni and Oloye Adegboyega Adeniji, said that “while taking note of President Tinubu’s offer of dialogue, we are concerned that in the same breadth, the President has also ordered that our protest be suspended. In our own view, the president cannot be approbating and reprobating at the same time. The President cannot offer an olive branch while at the same time holding a dagger to our throat. Indeed, by using his broadcast to call for suspension of the protest, we are worried that President Tinubu has willy-nilly signalled the police, the army and of course the so-called hoodlums to drown our movement in blood just like EndSARS four years ago. This played out earlier today at Gani Fawehinmi Park Ojota, Lagos where thugs attacked protesters who had gathered for Sunday morning worship thereby injuring many.”
They disclosed that since the movement is mass driven, “only the mass of the people can take decisions on their struggle including whether to suspend it or not.” They promised to gather at the Gani Fawehinmi Park,Ojota on Monday for a more elaborate press conference, adding that “they were by this statement notifying the Commissioner of Police in Lagos state to ask his men and women not to harass and repress protesters in Lagos and across the country.” Another Civil Society Organization, The United Action Front of Civil Society (UAFCS), said on Sunday that the organised civil society was ready for dialogue with the Federal Government on the ongoing nationwide protest and the challenges in the country.
Olawale Okunniyi, Head, Coordinating Secretariat of UAFCS, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria. He said in the interview in Lagos on Sunday that civil society groups would honour the government’s invitation for talks on addressing citizens’ concerns. In his own reaction, Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Comrade James Ezema, said, “The President’s silence on acceptable measures to alleviate the people’s suffering is deafening.” The CNPP also criticized opposition parties for what it considered their failure to provide a united front against the APC’s misrule, warning, “It is time for opposition politicians to stop hiding behind press releases and take to the streets to lead the protests against the government’s pain-inflicting policies or speak no more.” In the same vein, Professor Soyinka, who praised the content of the address for its depth, however criticised the steps taken since the protests started.
THEWILL had reported on Saturday, that security operatives, including officers of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command and Department of State Security Services (DSS), fired gunshots and tear gas at protesters at the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja, the approved designated location for the ongoing #EndBadGovernance protests.
The operatives also fired sporadically at fleeing journalists. The car belonging to a Premium Times reporter, conveying The PUNCH, The Cable, Premium Times, and Peoples Gazette’s reporters was fired at. Also, a commuter vehicle’s glass was shattered with bullets. According to Soyinka, the president’s “outline of the government’s remedial action since inception, aimed at warding off just such an outbreak, will undoubtedly receive expert and sustained attention both for effectiveness and in content analysis. My primary concern, quite predictably, is the continuing deterioration of the state’s seizure of protest management, an area in which the presidential address fell conspicuously short.
“Live bullets as a state response to civic protest – that becomes the core issue. Even tear gas remains questionable in most circumstances, certainly an abuse in situations of clearly peaceful protest. Hunger marches constitute a universal S.O.S., not peculiar to the Nigerian nation. They belong indeed in a class of their own, never mind the collateral claims emblazoned on posters,” he said, adding that “security agencies cannot pretend to be unaware of alternative models for emulation, civilised advances in security intervention.”
In his statement titled, ‘The HUNGER MARCH As UNIVERSAL MANDATE’, Soyinka further said, “The nation’s security agencies cannot pretend unawareness of alternative models for emulation, civilised advances in security intervention,” adding that the time is long overdue, surely, to abandon, permanently, the anachronistic resort to lethal means by the security agencies of governance. Northern Coordinator of the Workers and Youth Solidarity Network, Comrade Iortyom Moses in a note to THEWILL on Sunday, said, “It is even more disappointing to note that, whereas the masses had placed clear and concise genuine demands for action for the government, President Tinubu sadly chose to bypass these and delivered a speech that has neither mettle nor substance and did not address in any concrete way, even one of the demands of the protesters.
