Arts and Life
Any gov’t that allows protests for and against at the same time wants youths killed, SAD alleges
By Ekuson Nw’Ogbunka
Abuja
The Society for Advancement of Democracy (SAD) has accused the government of intending to kill Nigerian youths, for allowing at the same time and space the protests for and against in Nigeria.
The chairman of the group, Prince Orji Nwafor-Orizu addressed journalists recently in the SAD’s national secretariat in Abuja Monday.
Sending the message across, he said: “If he knows that there are things that are lacking, why should some people be protesting in his favour and how can any government allow at the same time and space, protests for and against; it intended to kill the youths.
Accusing the government of taking the protesters and Nigerians for granted, the chairman said President Ahmed Bola Tinubu, should have addressed the nation before the protests, adding that addressing Nigerians at the middle of the protests is unfair to Nigerians and the protesters.
Still accusing the government of unwilling to address the ongoing protests, Prince Orji Nwafor-Orizu said that for Tinubu to ask for the protests to stop, without delegating at least, about five government officials to hear out the grievances of the protesters at the national stadium, where they were confined, showed unseriousness and unwillingness to settle the issue at hand. If he doesn’t do that, the prince went on, how would he know what they are saying and what he is addressing?
Still believing that his refusal to interface with the protesters was the reason behind his inability to find out their demands, he said that the protesters believed that if fuel subsidy is dealt with, the prices of goods and services would come down. Although he noted that the president said so many good things in his broadcast, but wondered how those things would influence the inflation and the youths.
He therefore frowned at the way Mr President addressed the nation, without condemning those said to have been killed with live bullets by the police.
“Throughout his broadcast, Mr President didn’t caution those using live bullets to kill people and he is expected to condemn the use of live bullets to kill people. See the way they were said to kill people in the north, as if they weren’t human beings. Condolences are not necessarily, but stopping the killings,” he stated.
While still faulting the way the government has been going about the whole thing, he had this to say: “They confined the protesters at the national stadium, but on their way to there, it was said that the police started shooting and throwing teargas at them.”
On leaving the national stadium for Eagle Square against the order of the court, the association’s chairman saw that, as using illegality against illegality, even as he added that, placing the protesters with an injunction, was like placing that to no person, defending that the injunction wasn’t published in anywhere.
Advising the president to be serious in dialoguing with the protesters, the association however advised the protesters to go about their protests peacefully.