The Nigeria Labour Congress, on Monday, issued a war.ning against any attempts to suppress Nigerians’ fundamental right to express their views, particularly in the light of the planned nationwide pr0tests.
The NLC instead called on the government to engage the pr0testers constructively, rather than resorting to measures that could undermine citizens’ rights to voice their gr!evances.
The labour union also called on President Bola Tinubu to listen to the cries of Nigerians over húnger and widespread hard.ship in the country.
A section of Nigerians have been mobilised to start nationwide pr0tests on August 1, under the hashtags #TinubuMustGo and #Revolution2024.
The Presidency, however, described such calls as treasonable, as it also accused the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, and his supporters of spreading the hashtags.
In a lengthy tweet published on his X account on Saturday, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, alleged that the sponsors of the protests were not democrats but anarchists.
“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,” the presidential aide said.
The NLC, however, said the government should not engage in a “war-war” situation with Nigerians but to negotiate.
In a statement on Monday, the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, said, “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 gr!evances.
“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 referenced a recent country living standards index assessment by the National Bureau of Statistics, which established that about 133 million Nigerians lived below the extreme p0verty line.
He said, “When this statistics is added to the millions that are being recruited into the armies of the unemployed and under-employed Nigerians, one can easily situate the hard.ship, pain, frùstrations 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.”
Meanwhile, the Federal Capital Territory Commissioner of Police, Bennett Igweh, has called on the residents and indigenes not to partake in the planned nationwide protest.
The FCT police boss, speaking with journalists in Abuja, on Monday, urged the residents to shun the pr0test.
He stated that the police had made significant efforts to ensure security in the FCT, adding that the pr0test could je0pardise it.
“I want to appeal specifically to the residents and indigenes and everybody that is in FCT. Please, lions do not destr0y their dens. You cannot see a lion that destr0ys its den, no. I would not like you to join this pr0test. I plead with you because we have suffered to ensure your safety.
Pr0test not solution to Nigeria’s challenges, says Jigawa gov
“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 pr0test. 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 destr9y where you are living.”
Igweh said the government was doing its best by providing good roads among others.
He said, “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 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 m!screants to come from outside the FCT and start destr0ying them. We will go back to square one where we were before. I plead, I beg of you, do not join this pr0test.”
Also on Monday, the Chairman of the Gombe Network of Civil Society Organisations, Ibrahim Yusuf, said his members were not part of the planned pr0test in the country.
He then called for the reliefs promised by the President, noting it was yet to arrive in the state.
Yusuf, speaking at the Gombe State House of Assembly during the public hearing on the state Social Investment Programme Agency and Persons with Disabilities Protection and Establishment of Commission and other related matters bills, lamented the hard.ship in the country.
He, however, said, “We are not part of the pr0test. The truth is, there are things we need to acknowledge and confr0nt. The majority of the messages I receive are requests for assistance because people are strùggling with hùnger and an.ger.
“That’s why they’re waiting for action. While the Federal Government has distributed palliative items to the state governments, we haven’t seen any evidence of this in Gombe State. We must hold our leaders accountable for addressing the gr!evances of the pr0testers.”
Speaking on the distribution of fertilisers, he said the President directed that 50 per cent of it should go to a specific group, lamenting that, “We’ve only seen a select few with access to these resources. The truth is, this system needs to change.”
Speaking earlier, the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Zubairu Umar, said following the change in the situation, the government was now obliged to feed its citizens, stressing that the responsibility of the government was to create an enabling environment.
“We are in a dire situation. Much as we agree that the whole idea of government is the protection of lives and property and the well-being of people, the government is not supposed to be the one to feed you.
“It’s not the responsibility of the government; you are to look for food by yourself. All the government needs to do is to give you an enabling environment.
“Unfortunately, in Nigeria, that’s not happening. Things are not happening the way they should and circumstances have made the situation so bad that the government will have to intervene.”
In his welcome address, the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Abubakar Luggerewo, said the bill was presented to the Assembly as an executive Bill.
He considered it timely, due to the current economic hard.ship faced by not only citizens of Gombe State but Nigerians in general.
Peoplesmind
Peoplesmind
