The Nigeria Labour Congress warned on Monday against any attempts to stifle Nigerians’ fundamental right to free speech in light of the planned nationwide protests.
The NLC urged the government to actively interact with the protesters rather than using tactics that would compromise citizens’ rights to express their complaints.
The labour union also called on President Bola Tinubu to listen to the concerns of Nigerians over hunger and widespread hardship in the country.
A section of Nigerians has been mobilized to begin nationwide protests on August 1 under the hashtags #TinubuMustGo and #Revolution2024.
The Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and his followers were accused of disseminating the hashtags by the Presidency, which denounced the demands as treasonous.
The Special Advisor to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said in a lengthy tweet posted on his X account on Saturday reported that the protestors’ sponsors were anarchists rather than Democrats.
“If they understand the meaning of their hashtags, they will realise they are clarion calls for treason. Wanting to end an elected government is high treason. Wanting revolution is a call for a coup d’etat, which is also high treason,” the presidential aide said.
The NLC, however, stated that the government should not engage in a “war-war” situation with Nigerians but to negotiate.
In a statement on Monday, the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, said, “As the date for the widely reported national protest looms, the Nigeria Labour Congress urges President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to invite the leadership of the protest movement for discussions on their grievances.
“The truth is that millions of Nigerians are angry about the state of the national economy. A situation where most Nigerian families are forced to eat one miserable meal a day and eating from the dustbin beckons for serious intervention by the government.”
Ajaero cited a National Bureau of Statistics assessment of the country living standards index that revealed that 133 million Nigerians were living in extreme poverty.
He said, “When this statistic is added to the millions that are being recruited into the armies of the unemployed and under-employed Nigerians, one can easily situate the hardship, pain, frustrations and despair that many Nigerians are going through right now.
“The truth is that Nigerians have been hard pushed and super-pressed right against the walls of deep deprivation and acute want.
“It is, therefore, condescending and dismissive to describe the daily brutish ordeal that Nigerians are going through as a sponsored political dissent.”
In the meantime, Bennett Igweh, the Commissioner of Police for the Federal Capital Territory, has advised locals and indigenous people to boycott the upcoming nationwide protest. Igweh made the request while addressing reporters in Abuja on Monday.
He added that the protest might compromise the police’s considerable efforts to maintain security in the FCT.
“I want to appeal specifically to the residents and indigenes and everybody that is in FCT. Please, lions do not destroy their dens. You cannot see a lion that destroys its den, no. I would not like you to join this protest. I plead with you because we have suffered to ensure your safety.
“We have fought those people outside Abuja, we have been to Kaduna, Nasarawa, Niger to fight them (criminals), so that you can be safe. I have lost men. Last week alone in Gidango, I lost two policemen. The other day, I lost two again. Let our loss pay for the protest. I want to plead with you.
“We don’t need you to be in the streets before somebody will say he is trying the police might. Or you will say, you will do this, you will do that. Please, please, don’t destroy where you are living.”
Igweh said the government was doing its best by providing good roads among others.
“They are trying their best. I don’t need to talk to anybody, but I’m saying it because we have been in the FCT. We know when there are changes. There are changes now in FCT.
“And we don’t want miscreants to come from outside the FCT and start destroying them. We will go back to square one where we were before. I plead, I beg of you, do not join this protest.”
Additionally on Monday, Ibrahim Yusuf, the chairman of the Gombe Network of Civil Society Organisations, declared that his organization’s members were not taking part in the nation’s planned protest.
He immediately demanded the President’s promised help, pointing out that it had not yet reached the state.
Yusuf, addressing at the Gombe State House of Assembly during the public hearing on the state Social Investment Programme Agency and Persons with Disabilities Protection and Establishment of Commission and other connected matters bills, decried the suffering in the country.
He, however, said, “We are not part of the protest. The truth is, there are things we need to acknowledge and confront. The majority of the messages I receive are requests for assistance because people are struggling with hunger and anger.
“That’s why they’re waiting for action. While the Federal Government has distributed palliative items to the state governments, we haven’t seen any evidence of this in Gombe State. We must hold our leaders accountable for addressing the grievances of the protesters.”
Speaking on the distribution of fertilisers, he said the President directed that 50 per cent of it should go to a specific group, lamenting that, “We’ve only seen a select few with access to these resources. The truth is this system needs to change.”
Speaking earlier, Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Zubairu Umar stated that the government was now required to provide for the citizens’ needs due to the recent change in circumstances, emphasising that the government’s responsibility was to foster an atmosphere that is conducive to growth.
“We are in a dire situation. Much as we agree that the whole idea of government is the protection of lives and property and the well-being of people, the government is not supposed to be the one to feed you.
“It’s not the responsibility of the government; you are to look for food by yourself. All the government needs to do is to give you an enabling environment.
“Unfortunately, in Nigeria, that’s not happening. Things are not happening the way they should and circumstances have made the situation so bad that the government will have to intervene.”
Speaker of the State House of Assembly Abubakar Luggerewo stated in his welcome speech that the bill was presented to the Assembly as an executive bill.
Given the current economic hardships that Gombe State residents and Nigerians in general are facing, he thought it timely.
