August 5, 2024
Four days into the #Endbadgoverance protest, Sunday August 4th, 2024 president Bola Tinubu, addressed the nation calling for dialogue and end to the ongoing protest.
Recall that the protesters had asked the President to address the nation and respond to their 15-point demand if they were to call off the protests.
However, the president address seem not to have met the protesters demand, not satisfied with the President’s response to the protest, organisers of the protest continued with their action in some states across the country, saying the nationwide broadcast did not address their demands.
In Lagos, the police, however, barred the protesters from holding a procession beyond the designated ground at Gani Fawehinmi Park, Ojota.
For Mr Deji Adeyanju, one of the main organizers of the nationwide protest, President Tinubu broadcast was a complete disaster.
Adeyanju said: “President Tinubu failed to address the demands of protesters, not even one, and it is very disappointing and unfortunate because there is no other way to explain it. ‘’Those people at the Villa cannot make the President see or hear what is going on in the country. The President could not order the arrest of people who killed peaceful protesters in the last couple of days and it is really sad.
“The issue of fuel subsidy, electricity tariff was on the front burner, and many other things we were expecting to hear from the President, unfortunately, none of these things were dealt with.’’
Coordinator of the protest in Osun State, Ajala Adetunji, said his group, Coalition of Concerned Nigeria Citizens, would meet to discuss the way forward but was emphatic that the ongoing protest would continued because the President address did not reflect any of their demands.
“The president was not specific on what the government will do to address the demands of the youth. The president’s call for dialogue is an open-ended appeal, which does not have a clear indicator of what will be done.
“However, we are still going to meet to deliberate but as it stands, the protest continues in Osun.”
In Kano, hundreds of protesters hit the streets on Sunday in continuation of the ongoing nationwide protest against hunger and to end bad governance, expressing dissatisfaction over the President’s nationwide broadcast.
This is even as the Kano state government on Sunday relaxed the 24-hour curfew by six hours (8 am to 2 pm) to ease the toll the curfew was having on on residents.
They were seen displaying the Russian flag, saying they would return to Russian President, Vladimir Putin, for help, while in some other places chanting, “whether he (Tinubu) adjust or not, he must go”.
In Katsina, hoodlums hijacked the protest, invaded churches, looting and destroying properties under the guise of the ongoing nationwide protest against bad governance.
The protesters earlier stormed the Living Faith Church in Daura local government area, damaging the building and stealing all its valuables.
The newly renovated church, equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, suffered damage to its doors and windows as the hoodlums ransacked the building.
Deeper Life Church and Anglican Church, were not spared though the extent of the damages there was not immediately clear.
Also reacting to the President’s Sunday broadcast, former Vice President and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the 2023 elections, Atiku Abubakar, dismissed the broadcast as a hollow speech, devoid of solutions to the hardship facing Nigerians.
Atiku, who spoke through his Media Adviser, Paul Ibe, in a statement in Abuja, said the (Tinubu’s) speech neglects the pressing economic hardships that have besieged Nigerian families since the very beginning of his tenure.
“This address lacks credibility and fails to offer any immediate, tangible solutions to the Nigerian people.
“Given the extensive publicity surrounding the protests and the threats issued by government officials against demonstrators, one would have expected President Tinubu to present groundbreaking reforms, particularly those aimed at reducing the exorbitant costs of governance.
“In his lacklustre recorded speech, President Tinubu offered a superficial account of his so-called reforms, revealing his own tenuous grasp of policy as he failed to convince his audience.
Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, faulted President Tinubu’s national broadcast for not addressing the violent crackdown by security forces on protesters.
Soyinka, a statement, expressed concern over the president’s omission of this critical issue, “I set my alarm clock for this morning to ensure that I did not miss President Bola Tinubu’s impatiently awaited address to the nation on the current unrest across the nation.
‘’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.
“Such short-changing of civic deserving, regrettably, goes to arm the security forces in the exercise of impunity and condemns the nation to a seemingly unbreakable cycle of resentment and reprisals.
“Live bullets as a state response to civic protest – that becomes the core issue. Even teargas remain 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.
READ MORE; Reduce fuel pump price to ₦200 per litre to end protests … Tanko
“They serve as summons to governance that a breaking point has been reached and thus, a testing ground for governance awareness of public desperation. The tragic response to the ongoing hunger marches in parts of the nation, and for which notice was served, constitutes a retrogression that takes the nation even further back than the deadly culmination of the watershed #EndSARS protests.
“It evokes pre-independence – that is, colonial – acts of disdain, a passage that induced the late stage pioneer, Hubert Ogunde’s folk opera BREAD AND BULLETS, earning that nationalist serial persecution and proscription by the colonial government.
“The nation’s security agencies cannot pretend unawareness of alternative models for emulation, civilized advances in security intervention.
Also reacting to Tinubu’s speech, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on Sunday, described it as diversionary and insensitive to the plight of Nigerians.
National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr Debo Ologunagba, in a statement, explained that the president failed to address the real issues bothering Nigerians, which is the high cost of living, especially the rising cost of food items and the volatility of the local currency against major currencies which has made planning almost impossible.
“Our party is appalled that even though it took President Tinubu the prodding of the PDP to speak to the nation, it is distressing that the speech failed to offer any concrete measure to address the excruciating hardship in the country.
“Mr. President’s speech failed to respond to the demand by the citizens for immediate measures to reduce the price of petroleum products, halt the fall of the Naira and urgent intervention in the provision of food items to starving Nigerians.
“It is equally shocking that the speech did not order an investigation into the brutal killing of unarmed Nigerians by certain unscrupulous operatives of the APC-controlled security agencies while demanding good governance, protection, security and welfare, which are the primary purposes of government.
Lawyer and human rights activist, Mr Femi Falana, SAN, charged President Tinubu to address the demands of the peaceful protesters.
He noted that the presidential speech delivered fell short of addressing the key demand of the protesters – a reversal of the policy of withdrawal of fuel subsidies.
Falana in a statement, condemned the repression of the peaceful protesters, while commiserating with all those who lost loved ones in the protest.
He called on the government to set up commissions of inquiry to bring to justice to those responsible for the reckless killings.
In his statement: “If the government takes the fight against corruption to oil dealers and crude oil is processed in government-owned refineries, there will be no basis for fuel subsidy, which is induced by the importation of petroleum products.
‘’A positive response to the key demands of the youths to review the protesters could make them review their actions. Insensitivity to their demands can only provoke continued action.
“We commiserate with the families of the patriots’ peaceful protesters that were killed and call on the federal and state governments to set up commissions of inquiry, which should include representatives of credible human rights organisations and the NBA to investigate the killings, to bring to justice the reckless murderers in Police uniform and ensure that.
Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, lamented that the President’s speech did not address the anger of the protesters, especially the youths, saying the President heard the youths loud and clear but did not listen to them.
One of the leaders of NLC, said: “We are completely disappointed with the President’s speech. There was nothing concrete, as usual, it was all about promises. Yes, the President heard the protesters or the youths loud and clear, but sadly, the president did not listen to their demands or pains.
‘’How has the speech addressed the hunger in the land? How has the speech addressed the poverty inflicted by the government’s policies? How has the speech solved the immediate needs and demands of the protesters? “
Similarly, Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association, NECA, urged the federal government to urgently address the myriads of economic contradictions strangulating the private sector to enable the economy open up and return to the path of rapid growth.
Reacting to the President’s nationwide address in response to the ongoing protest, the Director-General/Chief Executive of NECA, Mr. Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, said: “With the current rate at which businesses are declaring losses, especially in the real sector, the nation might be in for another round of business shutdown.
“Following the protests and the national address by President Bola Tinubu, urging protesters to sheath their swords, the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association, NECA, has joined the President to urge the protesters to embrace dialogue, while also requesting the government to urgently address the seeming economic contradictions that are strangulating the organized private sector and stopping it from fulfilling its role as the engine of development.”
