President Bola Tinubu has urged Nigerians to halt the planned ‘EndBadGovernance’ dissent slated for next month.
Information Minister Mohammed Idris, who informed State House correspondents after a meeting with the President said Tinubu urged the protest organizers to halt the plan and anticipate the President’s reaction to their complaints.
“The issue of the planned protest, Mr. President does not see any need for that. He’s asked them to shelve that plan. He’s asked them to await the government’s response to all their pleas,” the minister said.
The protest against financial difficulty, which is building up some decent momentum via social media, has been scheduled to be held across all states of the Federation as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, in August. The organizers of the dissent have been anonymous.
Costs of food and essential commodities have gone through the roof in the last months, as Nigerians fight one of the nation’s awful inflation and monetary crisis ignited by the government’s twin policies of petrol subsidy removal and unification of forex windows.
The Federal Government, through the National Orientation Agency (NOA), and the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) as well as the House of Representatives have cautioned against the arranged demonstration.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and embattled Senator Ali Ndume requested that the President tend to the demands of the disappointed people, who are mostly youths.
In the meantime, presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga cautioned that the planned dissent, whenever staged, could decline into the obliteration of resources that followed the EndSARS protest against police brutality and extrajudicial killings in October 2020.
