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Sodiq Osoba, a public affairs analyst, has warned those planning to protest against the government to be specific about their demands, saying that a “protest without specific agenda will never be productive.”
Several groups have groups have announced planned to begin anti-government demonstrations dubbed ‘10 days of rage, #EndBadGovernance’, from August 1 to 10.
President Bola Tinubu, national assembly and other prominent individuals and groups have appealed to the organisers to shelve the protest and embrace dialogue with the government.
Security agencies, including police and military, have also warned of the possibility of the protest being hijacked by vested interests and leading to violence.
Reacting to the development, Osoba noted the protest is overdue. He, however, cautioned that using the hashtag #EndBadGovernance for the protest is not clear.
“We ought to have protested immediately when the subsidy was removed or when the electricity tariff was increased.
“Using the hashtag “End Bad Governance” isn’t clear. What do you mean by ending bad governance? Should the president be overthrown? If I were the president too, I would be scared some people have conspired to kick me out of office and I might want to employ every force possible to defend myself,” the public affairs commentator told BusinessDay in a conversation on Monday.
The political scientist noted that the October 2020 EndSARS protest ended in a bad way because the protesters started making bogus demands after the police unit, SARS, was disbanded, which was the original demand.
“Like the EndSars protest, the demand was clear, “End the Police Unit called SARS” and in fairness, the government did just that. Not until, people started shouting “Buhari must go” before everything turned around,” Osoba said.
He advised that the agenda for the protest should be specific, suggesting the demand for return of fuel subsidy, reversal of electricity tariff hike, among other issues troubling Nigerians.
“A protest without a specific agenda will never be productive. Our demands need to be clear and specific if we want to achieve anything meaningful with this protest. We want this, this and this and we won’t leave the streets until the government does our bidding.
“Electricity Tariff is too high, we want it reversed to what it used to be . Fuel is too expensive, return subsidy on fuel. Insecurity in the country is at an all time high, do something about it. End Insurgency, so that farmers can go back to the farm and which will also affect the prices of food in the market.
“These are reasonable demands and no government in its right senses would want to shoot or kill anyone for making these demands,” the political scientist said.
