On Monday, Ibrahim Waiya, the Executive Director of Citizens for Development and Education, expressed deep concern over the worsening economic conditions faced by Nigerians.
Waiya argued that street protests are not the best solution to address these issues. Speaking in Kano in response to plans for a protest by an unidentified group, he explained, “The low level of our civilization and exposure, combined with conflicting sentiments around religion and ethnicity, may prevent us from organizing well-coordinated protests.”’
He said, “Cumulatively, the economic challenges in Nigeria are enough to motivate the citizens to take to the streets, to show their anger, however, the low level of our civilization and exposure, as well the conflicting sentiments around religion and ethnicity may not allow us to have a well-coordinated protest which could translate into something positive.
“We are in support of the peaceful protest to show our anger, we are however skeptical about what could be the outcome, as many greedy and selfish politicians may take advantage of our division to hijack the process through the instrumentality of their paid hoodlums to cause chaos.
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“Peaceful protests are lawful in Nigeria, however, our fear is that the protest has the potential to stagnate the daily businesses of the poor in the country and aggravate their sufferings instead of finding succour for them.”
He lamented that protests, if not carefully managed, could devolve into chaos and bloodshed, often resulting in the loss of innocent lives.
He cited the ENDSARS protests as a recent example in Nigeria’s socio-political history, alleging that “many young men and women are still rotting in jails.”
He condemned “the insensitivity of the Federal Government to the severe difficulties in the land, with more than 85% of citizens struggling to feed themselves, while those in power have shown no empathy towards the suffering population.”
Waiya noted that in 2022, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics reported that about 130 million Nigerian citizens are living in multidimensional poverty.
Unfortunately, neither Buhari nor Tinubu have implemented effective measures to address this issue as a national crisis.
He stressed the need for the government to adopt measures to mitigate the effects of the post-fuel subsidy removal, criticizing the current interventions as ineffective, temporary, and inadequate.
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