Hunger protests: NLC warns against clampdown

The Nigeria Labour Congress, on Monday, issued a warning against any attempts to suppress Nigerians’ fundamental right to express their views, particularly in the light of the planned nationwide protests.

The NLC instead called on the government to engage the protesters constructively, rather than resorting to measures that could undermine citizens’ rights to voice their grievances.

The labour union also called on President Bola Tinubu to listen to the cries of Nigerians over hunger and widespread hardship in the country.

A section of Nigerians have been mobilised to start nationwide protests on August 1, under the hashtags #TinubuMustGo and #Revolution2024.

The Presidency, however, described such calls as treasonable, as it also accused the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, and his supporters of spreading the hashtags.

In a lengthy tweet published on his X account on Saturday, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, alleged that the sponsors of the protests were not democrats but anarchists.

“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, said 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 referenced a recent country living standards index assessment by the National Bureau of Statistics, which established that about 133 million Nigerians lived below the extreme poverty line.

He said, “When this statistics 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.”

Meanwhile, the Federal Capital Territory Commissioner of Police, Bennett Igweh, has called on the residents and indigenes not to partake in the planned nationwide protest.

The FCT police boss, speaking with journalists in Abuja, on Monday, urged the residents to shun the protest.

He stated that the police had made significant efforts to ensure security in the FCT, adding that the protest could jeopardise it.

“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.