Protest: HURIWA accuses Nigerian Govt of spreading panic, tension

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has accused the Federal Government of creating panic and igniting tension in the public space ahead of the planned nationwide protest.

HURIWA urged Federal Government officials to provide good leadership devoid of peddling cheap, unsubstantiated claims and false intelligence about the decision by some aggrieved Nigerians to stage peaceful protests against bad governance and unprecedented corruption and hunger in the country.

The association asked President Bola Tinubu to call his appointees to order, and direct them to stop the circulation of cheap lies that are orchestrating panic and tension amongst members of the public.

“The fear by the central and state governments about the imminent nationwide protests by some aggrieved Nigerians said to be commencing on August 1st, has made several government officials at both the federal and sub-national levels to continuously stoke on social tensions through all kinds of statements and claims that are absolutely unscientific and totally unacceptable,” says HURIWA in a statement signed by Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, its national coordinator.

HURIWA’s statement is coming after the Minister of State for Youth Development, Olawande Ayodele, urged Nigerian youths not to allow contents they see on social media push them into setting the country ablaze.

He made the appeal when the Renewed Hope Ambassadors of Nigeria, led by veteran Nollywood actor, Zack Orji, paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.

According to the minister, most of the contents on social media are lies being peddled by politicians to giv Tinubu’s administration a bad name.

HURIWA said, “The persistent dissemination of misinformation by government officials aimed at demonising the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental freedoms to hold peaceful demonstrations when the people are aggrieved about bad governance in the country, has contributed to the heightened state of fear, apprehensions and panic by Nigerians who expect that government officials ought to play the role of stabilising and good forces rather that agents of misinformation, peddling of false information and unsubstantiated intelligence.”

It added that the claim by Ayodele that people who are against the government are circulating false information using the social media, is not totally correct because even the publicly funded National Bureau of Statistics had officially designated Nigeria as the poverty capital of the World with well over 133 million people who are multidimensionally poor.

The statement added, “Is this minister of state for Youth development Mr.Olwande Ayodele residing in the outer space for him not to be aware that the costs of living crisis is factually and existentially true in Nigeria?

“Is the minister of state for Youth Development unaware that millions of Nigerians can’t afford most essential commodities including food items such as tomatoes, tubers of yams, sweet potatoes and proteins such as cow meat, goat meat and chickens because of the fact that their prices are way beyond the affordability of millions of hungry Nigerians?”