Government at all levels, especially at the federal and state, are in palpable administrative hysteria – Presidency, Governors, Traditional Rulers and the political class in general over the planned #EndBadGovernance protest scheduled for August 1 to 10 across the country.
The apprehension is so thick that every hour, a government official is denouncing the protest as recipe for anarchy and plot to scuttle democracy.
President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, members of the National Assembly, ministers, and even religious organisations that have visited the Preisdent are in united in their opposition to the protest occasioned by hardship, runaway inflation and general despondency.
While it is true that the Tinubu administration is not responsible for the myriads of economic challenges in the country, his actions and inactions have in no small measure fuelled the deepening poverty and its attendant consequences.
The road to the present conundrum was laid on May 29, 2023 when with executive fiat, perhaps, presidential euphoria, withdraw subsidy on petrol and will for months not have a comprehensive economic buffer against that impulsive action.
It is granted that the central government has increased allocations to states, provided palliatives mainly rice and have taken some measures to ameliorate the dire situation, nothing seems to have added value to the living style of majority of Nigerians.
One reason analysts have pointed to is the floating of the naira and the continued petrol import dependency.
This newspaper is persuaded that the recent events in Kenya, Uganda and Bangladesh are worrying and should be of concerned to the government, protest remains a democratic right guaranteed by the Nigerian Constitution and international law.
So, efforts by the government through various organs to discredit the protest is no brainer. What the government ought to do is to guarantee adequate security and protection to citizens who desire to protest and not muscle them against it.
Except the government is looking for raison de’tre to undermine the march by infiltrating the ranks of the protestors and justify its opposition to it, then it should stop worrying.
Further, the anguish of the government over the planned protest owing to the history of the #EndSars protest should give the organisers motivation to ensure that nothing goes amiss.
It is gratifying that renowned activists like Ebun Adegberuwa, SAN, Deji Adeyanju have
All written to the various security agencies on the August 1 #EndBadGovernance protest for protection.
But we wish to note that every protest must have an end product. What is the endgame to the scheduled protest? What are the demands that have been made that government is unaware of? Across the country’s religious sphere, clerics have been at how difficult things are.
Civil society organisations have voiced their concerns over the rising poverty amongst Nigerians. The government-owned Nigeria Bureau of Statistics amongst others have published worrying figures of the decline in living conditions of Nigerians.
So the ground for protest is fertile and legitimate.
Without the protest, is government less concerned about the plight of Nigerians? No! If the protest is to hold, peradventure, there is the inability of the organisers to determine the outcome, will the government be more motivated to address the worries? Not likely. If the protest descends into the chaos as history has shown, will there be repercussions? Certainly!
So, all parties must work in synergy to ensure that the voice of the aggrieved is heard, while the duty of government to guarantee the welfare and security of the people is upheld.
In all, may Nigeria win!