TRADITIONAL rulers have called for calm over the planned nationwide protest to demonstrate against the prevailing economic hardship in Nigeria.
The protest which is billed to begin from August 1st, 2024 has garnered traction on social media, prompting a meeting between traditional and President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Thursday.
“We will listen to our youths because they lead the future. The power and the strength of Nigeria are certainly with the young people,” the Dein of Agbor, HRM Benjamin Keagborekuzi said after the meeting.
“We feel your pain. I’m a young person myself. It’s been 24 years that I’ve been back and it’s been 24 years that I’ve sadly seen the nation going in a very unpalatable direction. But by God’s grace, I think if you would give us the chance, this protest, I know that it’s catching you very, very high in the net. But if you give us the chance, let us not destroy our own country. ”
On his part, the Emir of Zazzau Ahmed Bamalli said the country’s leaders are worried about the planned protest but called “on our people to exercise patience and to listen to the words of wisdom”.
“Well, the message we are taking back to our people is to be calm, to exercise patience, and also to listen to the words of wisdom coming from the traditional rulers and from the governors because we have spoken to the President and he has given us the blueprint of what he has been doing over time,” he said.
The Ooni of Ife Oba Adeye Enitan Ogunwusi also followed a similar line but called for caution so the protest would not be hijacked.
“We traditional rulers are not engaged in people, especially the youth coming out to start looting to start breaking down law and order. We are parents, we are traditional rulers, we are closer to them,” he said.
“We are going to go back home and continue to engage them. It is very difficult to build, but it is the easiest to destroy. We are all stakeholders in this country. We should be stronger as a nation together, than stronger individually.”
Thursday’s meeting is part of a last-minute push by the President Tinubu administration – which has come under severe criticism over its policies – to avert the planned protest.
Following the removal of fuel subsidy and the floating of the naira since the inception of the Tinubu government, the cost of living has soared, prompting the administration to reel out a raft of measures including a new minimum wage and the distribution of palliative. He has also called for patience.
But these efforts, many argue, are yet to do much in addressing the challenges.
In the wake of the planned protest scheduled to be held nationwide, security agencies have warned the organisers who have remained faceless to shelve the demonstration. They fear it may be hijacked by criminal elements, and turning violent like the EndSARS protest of 2020.
Several groups have also pulled out of the scheduled demonstration, but proponents argue that it is the citizens’ right to protest perceived ill-treatment from the government.