From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Former national vice chairman, North-West of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Moh Lukman, has accused President Bola Tinubu of pushing Nigerians to a hopeless situation with his unaligned policies, resulting to the proposed nationwide protest.
Lukman, who endorsed the protest in a statement yesterday in Abuja, claimed that President Tinubu had failed to put enough measures in place to fix the problems ravaging the country.
He argued that even in terms of ameliorating the challenges facing Nigerians, the government has demonstrated lack of capacity and competence in managing initiatives.
The former APC chieftain further argued that for more than one year, it has been one excuse after the other, without any clear blueprint or timeline when the downward slide of the Nigerian economy would end.
According to him, “Every day, the hopelessness of the government gets more exposed. And having pushed the nation to a hopeless trajectory, which has worsened the living conditions of all Nigerians, what plan has President Tinubu put in place to fix the problem?
“Even in terms of ameliorating the challenges facing Nigerians, the government has demonstrated lack of capacity to manage initiatives, thereby compounding the allegations of embezzlement surrounding initiatives to ameliorate worsening conditions of citizens,” Lukman argued.
Dismissing the threats from the security agencies to stop the protest, Lukman noted: “The truth is that these are old scripts, which have been used in the past to block attempts of Nigerians to legitimately express their dissatisfaction with the government’s policies. All those who are in the forefront of the campaign against the protest have never been associated with any popular campaign in the country.
“Every time Nigerians try to engage the government through protests or other modes of contestations, these same groups are always there with the same messages and warnings against so-called violence. They always uncover plots by opposition, criminal elements, etc to hijack protests and campaigns against the governments.
“If anything, it would have been news if they say anything contrary. The reality is that, often, the response of the security agencies through attempts to forcefully disperse protesters is the source of violence.
“In all past experiences, irrespective of these so-called appeals, which threatened organisers of the protests, protests still take place and in varying degrees recorded success.”
“As someone who is privileged to have organised protests in the country, one can say without any fear of contradiction that Nigerians, across every part of the country, have never been pushed to the wall like they are today.
“Within one year, virtually everything has crashed, all due to the impatience and arrogance of President Tinubu. If President Tinubu has turned out to be an impatient leader who is in a hurry to implement policies that has impoverish citizens, why should citizens be patient with him?” Lukman queried.