Protests: We’re sitting on a time bomb, Sule tells Northern governors

3 months ago 39

By Nkechi Onyedika-Ugoeze (Abuja) and Saxone Akhaine (Kaduna)

15 August 2024 | 2:12 am

• Arewa Forum condemns violence, looting • Fish out those behind calls for military takeover, ethnic leaders tell Tinubu The chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Northern Governors’ Forum, Abdullahi Sule, has described the nationwide #EndBadGovernance protest as an eye-opener, revealing that the Northern region is “sitting on a time bomb.” Sule,…

• Arewa Forum condemns violence, looting
• Fish out those behind calls for military takeover, ethnic leaders tell Tinubu

The chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Northern Governors’ Forum, Abdullahi Sule, has described the nationwide #EndBadGovernance protest as an eye-opener, revealing that the Northern region is “sitting on a time bomb.”

Sule, who is also the governor of Nasarawa State, made this assertion when he was featured on Channels TV’s current affairs program, ‘Politics Today.’ He said: “This protest that happened recently is an eye opener, especially to my colleagues from the North. Even if anybody is not doing anything it should not be governors from the North. We must do something urgent.

“In our next meeting as northern governors, it will no longer be a meeting where anyone will say religion has forbidden me from doing this or that. We must all go out to say this is what we will do to move from where we are to where we want our people to be.

“During the last protest in Lafia, the majority of those that came out on the streets were Almajiris. Some of them are five, six and seven years old. Lots of them did not even understand the meaning of the protest. When I spoke with them later, I discovered that some of them didn’t even know what they were protesting about.

“Unfortunately, in 2020, we sat down and took a decision on Almajiris but it could not work out as many of them went back into the practice and it took us to square one. Some of the leaders criticised the decision.

“But from what happened recently, I do not believe anybody will criticise the next actions that would be taken on the step to move forward, because as a time bomb, it will come and consume all of us.

“One major problem in the north is education. When people do not have education and economic empowerment, they will continue to behave the way the Almajiris behaved during the last protest.”

The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) yesterday strongly condemned the violence, looting, and destruction of public and private property that characterised the protests. The attendant consequence of the destruction of lives and property forced some state governments to slam a 24-hour curfew in various states.

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Prof. Tukur Mohammed-Baba, in Kaduna, the forum expressed grief over the loss of lives and injuries sustained during the protests, which took place across the country.

ACF described the actions of the protesters as “inexcusable and unequivocally condemnable,” noting that they negated the reasons given by the organisers of the protests.

ACF, therefore, urged the Federal and state governments to engage with citizens and respond to their grievances, calling for immediate consultations on the current trajectory of public policy. The forum also recommended the entrenchment of accountability and good governance principles, a robust anti-corruption drive, and dynamic engagement between citizens and government on public policies.

As Nigeria counts the sordid costs of the protests, ACF extends condolences to the families, friends and loved ones of those that lost lives; commiserates with the injured and sympathises with those whose properties were looted or damaged during the protests,” the statement added.

Also, leaders of ethnic nationalities under the aegis of the Movement for National Reformation (MNR) have called on President Bola Tinubu to investigate and unravel persons or groups behind the calls for a military takeover of government during the protest.

They insisted that those calling for a military takeover of a democratic government and the people holding a foreign country’s flag during the protest must be made to face the full wrath of the law to serve as a deterrent to others.

Speaking on behalf of the group yesterday in Abuja, an elder statesman and the Galadima Daffo, Plateau State, Dr Jonathan Sunday Akuns, stated that though there is hunger in the land occasioned by the reforms being undertaken by the government, the situation, however, does not warrant a call for a military takeover of a democratically elected government.

Akuns observed that the right of citizens to protest is a critical element in the social contract with democratic governments, which is not new in our clime; but we in MNR as major participants in the battle against the dictatorship of military rule in Nigeria will not allow any section of the population to destroy the basic gains of democracy we have achieved since 1999. He called on the Tinubu-led administration to return the country to the 1963 constitution as quickly as possible.

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