By Chesa Chesa
Southeast State Governors have advised aggrieved Nigerians not to go ahead with the nationwide protests against President Bola Tinubu’s government planned to begin August 1st.
Speaking Wednesday on their behalf, Chairman of he Southeast Governors Forum, Hope Uzodimma of Imo State, said it was too early to start agitating against the Tinubu administration fr economic downturn that is also affecting other parts of the world.
The Governor spoke to State House correspondents shorty after he accompanied the newest defector to the All Progressives Congress (APC) from Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Anyim Pius Anyim, also a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, to meet with President Tinubu, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Uzodimma argued that no tenable reasons are being proffered by planners of the protests, and that given the fragile state of the nation right now, such actions can be hijacked by unscrupulous persons to cause mayhem, as was experienced during the #EndSARS protests.
According to the Governor: “Democracy is about the opinion of the people and the protest is allowed in a democratic setting. Every protest must be reasonably conceived to be able to make political sense. I think it’s too early at this time in the life of this government for anybody to come out to say he wants to protest.
“First of all, there has not been any engagement where those who are sponsoring the protest were able to tell us the reasons for the protests. Secondly, given the global situation today and the insecurity in the country, we have a very fragile political environment that if not managed and protected very well, may collapse the entire country.
“So those who are going to protest, what is the reason for the protests, and if they have no reason for the protests, I think our advice, well-meaning Nigerians, citizens of this country who are making sacrifices, some of us have paid the supreme price for the existence of this country, we should guide our country very jealously.
“I think it is wrong time for anybody to do any protests because the implication of doing that, if care is not taken, is that it may be hijacked, like the #EndSARS experience where criminals now hijacked an innocently conceived agitation by young Nigerians. So this is another kind of temptation that I think those behind the protests because they have not been able to come out openly to say they’re behind it, there is a motive that is yet to be unravelled.
“So I think that we are not in support of the protest, we are not going to support any protest that has no programme, that is not discussed that nobody knows what the problem is. Okay, if you are protesting, what do you want the government to do? Because the reason for protests is that they want an issue to be addressed. What are the issues?
“So in my view, I think there is no need to overheat the polity, overheat our environment, and put our people in a position where the hardship that is occasioned by economic recession all over the world is further worsened. So I advise against the protests”, he said.
