Our reporter/ President Bola Tinubu on Thursday in a last minute push to avert the planned nationwide protest over his government’s harsh economic policies met with traditional rulers from across the country.
The protest which is billed to begin from August 1st, 2024 has garnered traction on social media, prompting a meeting between traditional rulers, APC governors, security chiefs and President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
At the end of Thursday’s meeting, the royal fathers called for calm over the planned nationwide protest to demonstrate against the prevailing economic hardship in Nigeria.
“We will listen to our youths because they lead the future. The power and the strength of Nigeria are certainly with the young people,” the Dein of Agbor, HRM Benjamin Keagborekuzi said after the meeting.
“We feel your pain. I’m a young person myself. It’s been 24 years that I’ve been back and it’s been 24 years that I’ve sadly seen the nation going in a very unpalatable direction. But by God’s grace, I think if you would give us the chance, this protest, I know that it’s catching you very, very high in the net. But if you give us the chance, let us not destroy our own country. ”
On his part, the Emir of Zazzau Ahmed Bamalli said the country’s leaders are worried about the planned protest but called “on our people to exercise patience and to listen to the words of wisdom”.
“Well, the message we are taking back to our people is to be calm, to exercise patience, and also to listen to the words of wisdom coming from the traditional rulers and from the governors because we have spoken to the President and he has given us the blueprint of what he has been doing over time,” he said.
The Ooni of Ife Oba Adeye Enitan Ogunwusi also followed a similar line but called for caution so the protest would not be hijacked.
“We traditional rulers are not engaged in people, especially the youth coming out to start looting to start breaking down law and order. We are parents, we are traditional rulers, we are closer to them,” he said.
“We are going to go back home and continue to engage them. It is very difficult to build, but it is the easiest to destroy. We are all stakeholders in this country. We should be stronger as a nation together, than stronger individually.”
DSS warns, Identifies sponsors
Meanwhile, the Department of State Services (DSS) has asked persons and groups yet to identify themselves in the public as leaders of the plot to stage a nationwide protest to shelve their plans and eschew any form of proposed rage, anarchy, and spoliation.
In a statement signed by the Director of Public Relations and Strategic Communications, Peter Afunaya, the Service says that while peaceful protest is a democratic right of citizens, it has confirmed a sinister plan by some elements to infiltrate the protest and use it to cause chaos and extreme violence in the land.
The statement added that the Service has identified the reason behind the protest to be political as the plotters desire to use the intended violent outcome to smear the federal and sub-national governments; make them unpopular and pit them against the masses with a long-term objective of achieving a regime change, especially at the centre.
“While peaceful protest is a democratic right of citizens, the Service has confirmed a sinister plan by some elements to infiltrate the protest and use it to cause chaos and extreme violence in the land,” the statement read.
The Service says it has also identified the funding lines, sponsors, and collaborators of the plot and is therefore asking parents, guardians, and heads of traditional and academic institutions to advise their children, wards, subjects, and students not to take part in the planned protest.
“The Service has also identified, among others, the funding lines, sponsors, and collaborators of the plot. However, it does not think that aggression should be the first line of action in the instance, in handling the emerging scenario,” the DSS said.
The statement further says the Service will work with other sister security and law enforcement agencies to maintain peace and where necessary, will apply all legitimate methods to achieve this.
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