Suspend protests now, embrace dialogue, Adegboruwa tells youths

After Day Two of the #EndBadGovernance protests, human rights lawyer, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, has asked youths to immediately suspend the protests and embrace dialogue with the authorities.

Mr Adegboruwa, who is the lawyer to the ‘Take It Back movement,’ one of the groups that organised the demonstration, made this known in a post on his Facebook page on Friday.

“I appeal to the protesters to withdraw themselves from their various protest grounds and to suspend the protests immediately and indefinitely, in order to give room for meaningful dialogue and engagement with the government.

“Given that the protests were said to have been hijacked by sponsored agents, it is necessary to avoid further losses and casualties. The organisers of the protests and their representatives should embrace dialogue with the government,” he said.

The senior lawyer regretted some deaths and losses recorded during the demonstrations, saying those were not part of the goals of the protest.

He expressed his “sincere condolences to the employers and families of the security personnel and also to the protesters, praying to God to comfort them and to grant them the fortitude to bear the irreparable losses.”

Dialogue

Mr Adegboruwa asked President Bola Tinubu to “directly address the nation and then engage the protesters, through their representatives.”

He said the government should, thereafter, set up a committee comprising men and women of integrity to meet with the protesters to address the issues that they have raised.

Mr Adegboruwa bemoaned the fact that the notice of the protest was given many weeks ago, yet nothing was done to engage the organisers to address the issues raised in their charter of demands.

#Endbadgovernancein Nigeria Protest

He said it is the same way that the government ignores several strike notices issued by the Labour unions until they eventually snowball into strike actions.

Demands

The protesters are asking for the return of the fuel subsidy. Other demands include halting some unfriendly economic policies of the government, and cutting down on the cost of governance.

Protests

Young Nigerians on Thursday commenced a 10-day protest across the nation, defying all entreaties by the Nigerian government and relevant stakeholders to dissuade them.

The Mr Tinubu-led administration has, in the past week, consistently appealed to the youth to shelve the demonstration, insisting that its policies were geared towards redirecting the fortune of the nation for the good of all.

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The government also engaged religious and traditional leaders to appeal to the angry youths to give the one-year-old administration more time to find its feet.

The nationwide protests against economic hardship started on Thursday, 1 August, and have been scheduled to run till 10 August across the country.

The protests were triggered by outrageous cost of living across the country as prices of food and basic commodities went through the roof.

This was just as inflation rates soared leading to an economic crisis, which analysts say was caused by the federal government’s petrol subsidy removal and unification of forex windows.