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PRO-DEMOCRACY OPPOSITIONS ASK NIGERIANS TO JOIN OCTOBER MASS PROTESTS
The coalition of civic organisations has asked workers and other pro-democracy Nigerians to join the forthcoming protests against bad governance slated for October.
In a joint statement on Thursday, the civic groups maintained that Nigerians need to participate actively in the nationwide protests because of President Bola Tinubu’s failure to address issues that pushed millions of citizens to hold the #EndBadGovernance protests in August.
The statement was jointly signed by Hassan Taiwo Soweto – National Coordinator, Education Rights Campaign (ERC); Oloye Adegboyega Adeniji – Chairman, Movement for Fundamental Change (MFC); Francis Nwapa – National Secretary, Youth Rights Campaign (YRC); Abiodun Aremu – Secretary, Joint Action Front (JAF); Adebayo Adedeji – Member, Leadership Council, Movement for African Emancipation (MAE); and Temitope Fagunwa – Co-founder, Pan-African Consciousness Renaissance (PACOR-Nigeria.
The groups added that President Tinubu’s actions in the last few days showed that his government was not ready to listen to the wailings and pains of Nigerians.
The statement reads: “We are here once again to invite you on another journey to redeem our nation as we continue to stand against all the anti-poor policies and programmes of the regime that are orchestrated to impoverish our people despite the abundance of wealth to make life easy and more rewarding for all citizens of our dear country.
“As is obvious to everyone, none of the demands of our ten days of rage in August has been met. Rather President Bola Ahmed Tinubu simply went ahead to use our national treasury to procure luxury cars, aircraft and other luxuries for himself and the first family without caring a hoot about the plea of hungry Nigerians. To show the absolute disdain that the Federal Government holds the people, Tinubu has gone ahead to now unleash on the Nigerian another round of hike in fuel price earlier this month.
“As we speak, price of fuel hovers between N900 per litre to N1900 per liter depending on which parts of the country you are. Meanwhile less than two years ago, a liter of fuel did not cost more than N200 per litre. This is outrageous. This is intolerable. As a direct consequence of this increment, life has become unbearable for many Nigerian people. Many are starving as the increase in fuel price has also impacted food prices.
Inflation has rendered the N70,000 new National Minimum wage irrelevant and incapable of bringing any relief to Nigerian workers.
“At the same time, the sharp rise in the cost of imported goods has rendered traders and shopkeepers redundant as shops are overflowing with goods that no one is ready to buy. The situation has also affected businesses and industries. Nothing less than ten multinational firms have left the shores of Nigeria between May last year leading to even more job losses.
“Based on the foregoing, we of the #EndBadGovernance Movement decided to declare October 1st 2024 as “National Day of Survival”. On this day, we call on the Nigerian people, workers, students, youth, the unemployed, traders and the poor to come out in peaceful protest and demonstrations against the excruciating condition of hardship, poverty and hunger imposed on us by President Tinubu’s decision to implement IMF/World Bank-inspired anti-poor capitalist policies of fuel price hike, electricity tariff hike, school fees hike, and naira devaluation.
“We also call on the Nigerian people to utilize this day to demand with one voice the immediate and unconditional release of all #EndSARS and #EndBadGovernance protesters in police and prison custodies as well as freedom for detained journalists, whistleblowers, activists and all victims of state repression.”
The groups explained further one of the many reasons they backed the planned protest is “that whereas every October 1st is a day to celebrate national independence, we do not think our country has anything to celebrate this year. Nigerians are neither happy nor free after 64 years of political independence from Colonial Britain.”
The statement continued: “Rather, the Nigerian working masses are poor, hungry and hardly surviving.Since coming to power, the Tinubu regime has imposed unprecedented hardship on millions of Nigerians and pushed them into multi-dimensional poverty and monumental misery. Many working families are at the point of starvation. Several people have lost their jobs. The middle class has been destroyed. The rate of suicide is increasing. Despite this, President Tinubu continues to drive forward these criminal anti-people policies
