Ahead of the August 1 anticipated nationwide protest being instigated by a faceless group, former national vice chairman, North West of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) Salihu Lukman has said it would be difficult for the present administration to convince Nigerians not to join the protest.
Lukman made the submission in a statement entitled, “Defense of the Indefensible,” made available to journalists in Abuja.
Checks revealed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, serving governors and eminent traditional rulers have pleaded with the masterminds of the protest to shelve the action.
But Lukman argued that the administration should make conscious efforts to address the harsh living conditions of the citizens thrown up by its harsh economic policies .
The former Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum specifically listed the removal of fuel subsidy and the floating of foreign exchange as unpopular policies that have thrown Nigerians into penury.
The statement read in part:”It must be recognised that attempts to suppress protest by even military governments have never succeeded. Often, after all the attempts to suppress protests, previous governments end up granting concessions, much more than what they would have ordinarily given.
The reality is, defending government in the face of a scheduled popular protest such as the coming August 1 protest amount to defense of the indefensible. It is inconsequential and will be incapable of stopping the protest.
“While acknowledging that one is not in any way related with the organisers of the August 1 protest, they must be commended for summoning the courage to mobilise Nigerians and confront the administration of President Asiwaju Tinubu to change the way it is managing affairs of the country.
The government must recognise that within one year, it has created more problems for Nigerians so much so that the hunger in the land has threatened virtually all citizens. If President Asiwaju Tinubu want to recover whatever is left of his democratic credentials, he should listen to the cries of Nigerians and respond by way of review his policy decisions especially withdrawal of subsidy and floating the Naira exchange rate.
“Certainly, these two policies can be managed better. The speed with which they are being implemented is the problem. Instead of anyone asking Nigerians to be patient, it is President Asiwaju Tinubu that must be asked to be patient and handle leadership responsibility with compassion.
He must not be allowed to continue to handle things as if he is on a mission to wreck the economy. One can say, again without fear of contradiction that the scheduled August 1 protest promises to be the most popular protest in the country since independence. The challenge before every patriot is to identify with the laudable objectives of the protest and support the organisers to succeed in providing the needed leadership required to humble President Asiwaju Tinubu and his government to come back to democratic order.
Even if President Asiwaju Tinubu is unable to recover his progressive credentials, we need him to be a democrat who can at least be accessible and accountable to democratic structures as provided in the 1999 Nigerian constitution as amended.
To that extend, all patriotic Nigerians must register disapproval about the politicisation of the military high command by drawing them into the plot to suppress the protest. By extension, the military high command must be told in unmistaken terms that protests are legitimate in a democracy.
No one should attempt to criminalise legitimate initiatives of Nigerians to engage in any contestation with elected governments in Nigeria. For those who express the suspicion of political motives about the protest, they must be told very clearly, that protests by nature are political.
The decisions that created the challenges, which makes the protest necessary, are political. The election of President Asiwaju Tinubu is political coming with so much political promises as contained in his Renewed Hope campaign document.
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If instead of producing Renewed Hope, his government is producing misery and hopelessness, citizens have every right to take up the political responsibility of contesting against his administration. In fact, faced with the reality confronting Nigerians, all genuine democrats must join the protest.
As a nation desirous of renegotiating our democracy, we must aspire to recruit the organisers of the protest to be part of the new political leadership of the country. If at all we are to succeed in rescuing Nigeria from the current travail of having people who operate more like Yahoo Yahoo fraudsters as our political leaders, we must aspire to recruit new sets of selfless leaders who will be organically connected and integrated with Nigerians in every respect.
The August 1 protest provide a good opportunity to begin the process of recruiting new political leaders for Nigeria. Accordingly, therefore, we must appeal to the organisers of the protest to remain focused and vigilant and continue the path of honour by ignoring all the voices of doom who are only interested in subverting Nigerian democracy. In the same vein, the organisers must have a public face to serve as a rallying point for all Nigerians to relate and effectively participate in the protest.
