Are you one of those who thought that the last End Hunger Protest was meant to be a simple and peaceful protest? That wasn’t the plan.
Fresh facts have shown that the just concluded protest which ended up being violent and destructive was actually planned to turn out that way by some faceless groups who had planned to use the opportunity of the protest to cause mayhem, brigandage and terror.
What City People gathered was that just as some groups who had facesless leaders were planning what they thought would be a peaceful protest, many other groups came up with their own Agenda and plans to hijack the protests and make the country ungovernable for Pres. Bola Tinubu who they believed could be pushed out of Aso-Rock on the scheduled date, August 1.
The plan was to mobilise people across the 36 states of the federation that would hold mass rallies on the major streets of the capital cities of Nigeria, starting with Abuja the seat of power.
Their plan was, once you make Abuja hot and ungovernable, the unruly protesters would head for Aso-Rock and face the security men at the gate. They had also expected that they would be rebuffed by armed guards and that in the melee that would ensue, some protesters would be shot at and killed and this would result in a very chaotic situation that would help to galvanise their agenda to create chaos all over Nigeria. They had planned that in the process, Pres. Tinubu would be sacked and he would run away and their plan would be achieved.
But they made a mistake, revealed an Insider. Their plan leaked to those in government and the corridor of power. The Inspector-General of Police got to know. So also the Army Chief. The National Security Adviser was also briefed and the Security apparatus of government were put on Red Alert. Several meetings were held with President Tinubu at Aso-Villa and a decision was reached to curtail the protesters to designated areas. Part of the decisions was for government to consult widely, which explained the meetings with traditional rulers, civil society activists, and the Governors. They were all told of the grand plot and the brief was for them to go back to their bases to explain to their people why there was no need for the protest.
The IGP handled the issue with utmost professionalism.
Though, the identities of the leadership of the protest were not known, the IG figured out who they were and invited a few popular activists like Femi Falana & Ebun Onagoruwa to a Virtual meeting, online.
Although the general feeling was that the protest was going to be peaceful, government had security reports that it wasn’t going to be peaceful. They had reports from insiders that many faceless groups were planning to cash in on that situation to forment trouble.
They also heard that some foreigners had been hired from neigbouring countries like Chad, Niger etc to move into the North and aggravate the situation. They were meant to bring in Russian flags, sew additonal flags to give to underaged boys to troop out and render the entire North-East & North-West flank ungovernable for 11 days.
But the damage control which the government came up with worked out in many states, as the protest were peaceful and it was contained in the few states where things were going out of control. Senator Shehu Sani aligns with the view that the violent protest in the North was an attempt to overthrow Tinubu.
Speaking on Tuesday as a Guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Sani disclosed that a day before the protest, money, as well as some foreign flags were shared among the youths in the region.
He argued that the protest was not squarely about the harsh policies and programmes of the government affecting the citizens, as the organizers wanted Nigerians to believe.
The former Senator alleged that someone behind the scene was driving the protest, to create room for anarchy and lawlessness in order to pave the way for an unconstitutional change of government.
“A day before the last protest, money was shared to the youths and Russian flags were also shared. That shows that the whole intent of the protest is not simply about the policies and programmes of the government,” he said.
“There was an attempt to create an atmosphere where there will be an overthrow of the government. When you have this kind of situation, you will see that someone is writing a script for anarchy, lawlessness and disorder. It is incumbent for someone like us to speak.”
Recall that the #EndBadGovernance protests kicked off across major cities in the country on August 1 to challenge the harsh economic environment caused by fuel subsidy removal and the decision of the government to float the naira.
However, during the protests in Kaduna, Kano, and some Northern states, some demonstrators waved Russian flags amid calls for military intervention.
The protest also turned violent in some states, leading to destruction of properties, looting and deaths in some cities.
Last Tuesday, the security chiefs and heads of security agencies in Nigeria, warned against the display of foreign flags during the protest and warned that they were ready to protect and defend the territorial integrity of the country.
They also disclosed their resolve to protect Democracy in the country.
The Financial Times of London came up with its own analysis of the situation of things in Nigeria. According to the report, “in the nearly 15 months since Bola Tinubu became president, he has forced his 220mn fellow Nigerians to swallow some bitter medicine. He removed a generous fuel subsidy, one of the few benefits citizens receive from their inefficient and corrupt state. He allowed the country’s currency, the naira, to enter freefall, fuelling imported inflation and triggering the worst cost of living crisis in a generation”.
“These measures have pushed tens of millions of already impoverished people deeper into misery. But they were necessary to begin correcting the country’s longterm economic demise. The fuel subsidy was ruinously expensive, guzzling nearly a third of the federal budget. It was also distortionary, channelling Nigerians’ energies into rentseeking, smuggling and graft. The exchange rate regime, which vastly overvalued the naira, wiped out exports of everything but oil. While genuine industries were starved of hard currency, cronies accessed cheap dollars to sell on the black market. Nigeria’s elite learnt a lesson that was toxic to the nation’s prospects: why produce anything when you can make a killing through arbitrage?
Moving to more orthodox policies is vital to reset an economy that has not grown in per capital terms for a decade and where one of the most lucrative industries has been Kidnapping. It is necessary, but insufficient. “Tinubunomics” is so disjointed it barely deserves the name. Shock therapy will probably fail if important adjustments are not made”.
“First, the President must chart a course ahead and convince Nigerians they are in it together. For that to be remotely credible, the political class must make sacrifices. Out must go lavish pay rises for Civil servants and flashy cars (not to mention jets) for government officials. Tinubu only has to look at Kenya, where violent street demonstrations have forced the government to withdraw Tax rises, to see what happens when a sense of injustice festers”.
“Likewise some savings from the fuel subsidy should be redeployed to support the most economically vulnerable as a priority. Hunger levels are soaring and millions of children are foregoing meals and school. Nigerian politicians love to be seen handing out bags of rice. But what is needed is direct cash payments to people’s phones, the technology for which exists, and in the longer term a proper safety net”.
“As things stand, the state lacks either the capacity or the probity to administer such a scheme. Tinubu needs to fix that urgently. With a few exceptions, his cabinet is full of light weights who owe their jobs to political patronage, not to expertise. Technocratic talent exists in abundance. It must be marshalled”.
“Corruption needs to be tackled. It does not help that Tinubu’s own vast wealth is not easy to decipher, nor that his poverty minister was suspended for alleged diversion of funds, something she denies. It does not help either that the state is implicated in the wholesale theft of oil, depriving the nation’s coffers of billions of dollars. Tinubu should use all his political guile to staunch the flow.
Some will argue that Nigeria’s state is so weak, so all Tinubu can do is remove its influence and retreat. Nigeria collects Tax worth about 10 per cent of Gross domestic product, one of the lowest rates in the world. That is a sure sign of how little trust exists between the government and the governed. But if the economy is to be revived, the state needs to be an enabler. It must provide power, roads, security and justice, not to mention schools, hospitals and support for the poorest in society. Without a joined up and articulated plan, Tinubu’s bitter medicine will not cure Nigeria’s ills. It will just leave a bad taste”.
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