The Protest Movement and Tinubu Must Go Campaign

The endbadgovernment protest was begun in earnest on August 1st as envisaged in this piece the blogger takes a review of the protest movement in the country and little beyond.Enjoy the reading.

August 1st the Nigerian protest by suffocated protesters was begun in earnest with the tag 'EndBadGovernance' and the federal capital territory in addition to the 36 states were agog with the agony of the protesters with various placards"Tinubu Must Go,Tinubu:Let The poor breathe ,enough is enough to hunger to hardship etcetera.The prices of foodstuffs went up astronomically in major markets as Nigerians engaged in panic buying to stock foodstuffs  in their homes before the planned nationwide'EndBadGovernment' protest.A couple of state or public dignitaries tried to prevent the outbreak of the protest to no avail.From the secretary to the state government George Akume who addressed the critical issues in an emergency press release on Wednesday down to top officials like minister of information and National orientation Muhammad Idris, Minister of budget and planning,Atiku Bugudu, coordinating minister of the economy and Minister of finance Wale Edun and most vociferous special adviser to the president on media matters Bayo Onanuga who had earlier unraveled the original source of the protest as ibo centric or mused by the Igbo who later were surprisingly missing in the third day of protest not involved in the current protest seeing the relative stability and tranquillity in the whole south east region.The protesters made a couple of ten point demand such as end hunger;cost of living crisis;insecurity, curbing current insecurity nationwide and resettle IDP ;Bloated national assembly reducing the cost of running national assembly and executive by 50percent ,scrap agencies, reduce size of government,scrap Nass executive allowances ,remove 7,447 projects worth 2.2trillion naira from NASS 2024 budget,Release all endsars protesters and compensation payment; protection of farmers and subsidies farm inputs ; human capital development and electoral reform; ensure living wage and carry out judicial reforms.Inspite of the appeal by politicians not to protest reeling out achievement of the 14 months administration such as 70k minimum wage,local government autonomy,rolling out palliatives, student loan fund, etcetera did not stop Nigerians from embarking on end bad government protest to commence.Dialogues failed totally worsened by mindboggling steep rises in the prices of foodstuffs nationwide as well as the prices of petroleum products soaring in the face of scarcity.The economy was estimated to loose 400billion naira daily about 4trillion naira in ten days.The national bureau of statistics says food Inflation rose to record high of 40.87percent in June alone as UN predicts 82 million Nigerians about 62percent of the population faced with extreme hunger by 2030 Calling on government to tackle food insecurity, insecurity, climate change and food shortages.

Government deployed security operatives soldiers and police nationwide ti forestall breakdown of law and order in the face of undaunted protesters demonstrating their resistance against hunger and bad government.Although opposition politicians gave their support but the inspector general of police kayode egbetokun who though recognised the right of the people to peaceful assembly, freedom of association,freedom assembly and protest as constitutional right however noted it might swing either side and in most cases violent and Checkered antecedence of protest movement with empirical evidence seem to back it up .

The civil society and pressure groups collaborated on numerous times to hold government accountable.The Nigerian bar association, National association of Nigerian students, Nigerian medical association presided over protest and defended the masses,from Gani Fawehinmi,Femi Falana,alao akao bashorun ,olikoye Ransome Kuti and Beko Ransome Kuti led public advocacy in protest.The only known successful protest was the reduction of petrol prices from 141 naira down to 65 naira per liter though subsidy was partially reinstated.Police brutality from special anti robbery squad in the so called 2020 EndSars protests by protesters was begun in a peaceful protest and they also called for economic reforms.When hoodlums attacked protesters it turned violent and the military intervened led to controversial lekki shooting at the lekki tollgates.

Kenyans were witnessing same notoriety from the hands of their security operatives soldiers and police in Kenya where protesters took to the streets against proposed finance bills by William Tutor that imposed punitive taxes on the economic growth worsened cost of living crisis.From South Africa to Bangladesh,south Korea,Hong Kong and China the challenges of peaceful protest have often been a nightmare and nigeria not an exception especially when the government was clueless.

 However peaceful protest in some states turned to violence against terms of peaceful protest as admonished by the authorities.About 21 deaths were recorded in over 1380 arrests though about 18 states were relatively peaceful.Prominent Nigerians also took to the streets to protest by the agonizing protesters such as portable in Ibadan,wizkid also reacted  and Davido was particularly interesting whose song was being chanted in the protest procession.The protest too started peacefully with protesters chanting Solidarity songs defies police attempt to silence them subsequently took a violent turn in some cities as previously envisaged and about 17 persons reportedly lost their lives in Kano, jigawa,niger Borno, Kaduna,Abuja during the protest that entered it's third day of procession .One person shut dead in Abuja and Kano ,six in niger two in jigawa and four in Borno and three in Kaduna .Like 2012 occupy Nigeria and 2020 endSars protests peaceful protest turned violent as economic activities were paralysed .The government has been stubborn so far like the protesters turning down their demand and doing the opposite.It reneged on local government autonomy act and currently added more agencies in resistance of Orosanya committee report and the demand to cut down the running cost of government.The government sponsored protest paying Nigerians 5k per citizen in the counter protest(August 1st to 15th) alongside endbad government protest(August 1st to 10)still have more days of axe to grind and we are watching.