NLC warns Tinubu against clamp down; urges engagement, not war-war
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Labour has warned Bola Tinubu against abusing his presidential powers to clamp down on youths planning to protest against hunger from August 1, reiterating it is the constitutional right of Nigerians to protest, especially in a democracy the President claimed to have championed before he grabbed the mantle.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) issued the warning against attempts by the police or the Department of State Security (DSS) on Tinubu’s orders to suppress the fundamental right of citizens to express their views, particularly amid hardship and hunger brokered by his mismanagement of national resources.
The NLC urged Abuja to engage protesters constructively, rather than resort to high-handed tactics to undermine the right and the platform to voice grievances.
It implored Tinubu to listen to the cries of Nigerians over hunger and widespread hardship North and South and to tackle the problem.
Youths are mobilising for a nationwide protest for 10 days, begging August 1, under the hashtags #Endbadgovernance, #TinubuMustGo, and #Revolution2024.
Tinubu’s goons have described such calls as treasonable and have accused Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi and his supporters of planning the protest.
Tinubu’s Information and Strategy Adviser Bayo Onanuga alleged in an X post on Saturday that the protesters are anarchists, not democrats.
“If they understand the meaning of their hashtags, they will realise they are clarion calls for treason. Wanting to end an elected government is high treason. Wanting revolution is a call for a coup d’etat, which is also high treason,” he wrote.
Engage youths in negotiation, not war, NLC counsels Tinubu
However, the NLC countered the government should not engage in a “war-war” situation with Nigerians but to negotiate.
“As the date for the widely reported national protest looms, the Nigeria Labour Congress urges President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to invite the leadership of the protest movement for discussions on their grievances,” NLC President Joe Ajaero counselled in a statement.
“The truth is that millions of Nigerians are angry about the state of the national economy. A situation where most Nigerian families are forced to eat one miserable meal a day and eating from the dustbin beckons for serious intervention by the government.”
Ajaero cited a recent assessment by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) which shows about 133 million Nigerians live below the extreme poverty line.
“When this statistics are added to the millions that are being recruited into the armies of the unemployed and under-employed Nigerians, one can easily situate the hardship, pain, frustrations and despair that many Nigerians are going through right now.
“The truth is that Nigerians have been hard pushed and super-pressed right against the walls of deep deprivation and acute want.
“It is, therefore, condescending and dismissive to describe the daily brutish ordeal that Nigerians are going through as a sponsored political dissent.”
FCT police urge residents to shun protest
Federal Capital Territory Police Commissioner Bennett Igweh, nonetheless, on Monday urged Abuja residents not to participate in the planned protest.
“I want to appeal specifically to the residents and indigenes and everybody that is in FCT. Please, lions do not destroy their dens. You cannot see a lion that destroys its den, no. I would not like you to join this protest. I plead with you because we have suffered to ensure your safety,” he said at a press conference in Abuja.
“We have fought those people outside Abuja, we have been to Kaduna, Nasarawa, Niger to fight them [criminals], so that you can be safe. I have lost men.
“Last week alone in Gidango, I lost two policemen. The other day, I lost two again. Let our loss pay for the protest. I want to plead with you.
“We don’t need you to be in the streets before somebody will say he is trying the police might. Or you will say, you will do this, you will do that. Please, please, don’t destroy where you are living.
“If you check, the government has provided good roads. Whether it’s from the Minister of the FCT or the President, check the roads in the FCT. From Wuse to anywhere you can check, even in the hinterlands.
“They are trying their best. I don’t need to talk to anybody, but I’m saying it because we have been in the FCT. We know when there are changes. There are changes now in FCT.
“And we don’t want miscreants to come from outside the FCT and start destroying them. We will go back to square one where we were before. I plead, I beg of you, do not join this protest.”
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