The End bad governance Protesters vowed on Friday to keep up their demonstrations against the President Tinubu-led government, a day after violent clashes in some parts of the country, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
They accused the government of sending tugs and hoodlums to unleash mayhem on their members and other innocent citizens.
TheFact Daily reports that what started peacefully nationwide yesterday later turned violent in states like Kano, Yobe, Nasarawa, Katsina and Borno, forcing the governments to declare compulsory curfew in some volatile parts of the states.
So far, about 17 persons were reportedly killed in Abuja, Kano, Borno, Kaduna, and Jigawa states since the protest started on Thursday, August 1, 2024.
Addressing newsmen before embarking on today’s protest in FCT, Barr. Kingsley Okolie said, the demand is simple, the government should reverse the fuel subsidy which he said, has brought untold hardship on Nigerians.
He said, the group refused to dialogue with the government because they are sceptical of government’s intention, and that they may bribe the promoters of the protest.
‘They are going to bribe some section of the promoters of the protest, so this protest does not have a single leader that you can take and bribe. Tinubu should listen and leave the advisers. He should make a National Broadcast, remove corruption from subsidy payment and restore it. None of the genuine promoters of this protest want to go and discuss with them to collect bribe”, he alleged.
Another protester, Matthew Dada said, “one of the things I see about this government is that they are not ready to to govern. If they were prepared, in less than three months, they said that they have realized over N1trillion from subsidy, so where is the money? See, when they removed the subsidy everyone was jubilating because they thought that the money would be properly channelled, and that everyone will feel the impact, but that has not happened”.
Also speaking, Onome Titto said, “the leaders that we have are human beings, they are living and have blood flowing through their veins, they should make terms with our demands. They are very simple, we have the money in this country, so all these charms about about the country is broke, all those are just shenanigans. We have money from crude, mining, taxes, we pay tax in this country that is enough .
“We want the fuel to go back to N100, resuscitate the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) we want the Minimum Wage to be increased above N70,000 because a bag of rice now is N85,000, so if I am a civil servant, and being paid N70,000, that means I still need to borrow N15,000 to be able to buy rice, and that is just rice. You are not taking about transport, and school fees. I am a father and I need to secure the future of my children. That is why were are here.
“We are not fighting with the government, the inspiration of this protest is hunger, there is no man from anywhere that is instigating this. It is affecting everybody. Is only the people that are stealing that will say nothing is affecting them. Every single person is being affected by this economic hardship. We don’t need direct palliative, they should provide sustainable solutions”, he said.
Although, the present administration had introduced some intervention programmes to address the hunger in the land.
Some of the interventions introduced by the government are: the Compressed National Gas (CNG) policy to bring down the cost of transportation by about 60% thereby providing a viable alternative for petrol and diesel, the direct payment of N75,000 to 15 million households, the release of food from the strategic reserves across the country.
Others are: the 150-day duty free import window for food commodities (maize, husked brown rice, wheat and cowpeas etc.), to moderate domestic food prices, the 740 trucks of rice sent to the 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) with each state receiving 20 trucks, and most recently, the increase of national minimum wage from N30,000 to N70,000.
Despite these interventions, the Nigerian youths declared 10-day nationwide protest for the government to restore the fuel subsidy removed in May, 2023.
