Protests for freedom, restructuring will continue, says Gani Adams

Some Nigerians have argued that sectional agitations are no longer as viable as they used to be in the past and as such would not succeed.

But another school of thought has swiftly dismissed that argument, saying agitations for equity and fair play will continue as long as other sections of the country continue to witness oppression and margilisation.

One of such is the National Coordinator, O’dua Peoples Congress (OPC), Otunba Gani Adams, who told The Guardian that those with such notion should be aware that Nigerians now have a better understanding of what the activists struggled to achieve in the early 1990S than they were in those days.

He also argues that the struggle has taken a deeper, civilised and a more advanced dimension than it was in the previous years.

“It is true that there are less street protests and road shows these days, but that does not mean those in the struggle are not making use of other effective and easy means of reaching out to their audience like in the past,” he said.

He explained that the expectation was that Nigeria would be restructured in line with true democracy when we got democracy in 1999, but that was not to be.

However, since we are now practising democracy, there is no need to continue to heat up the polity, otherwise this might give the government the opportunity to label any group a terrorists organisation like IPOB is currently being labeled.

He also explained that in other climes, the struggle to actualise true democracy often took more than 40 to 50 years before it is achieved, adding, “Even in South Africa, it took a long time before the people were able to defeat the apartheid regime for democracy.

“The late Alao Aka Bashorun was one of the first to start the struggle for restructuring and principle of justice and fairness in the country and at every point, something critical is achieved.

“In 2014, former President Goodluck Jonathan was forced to organise a National Conference where over 600 resolutions were made and we are still expecting and agitating that this government or the coming one will implement those recommendations. It is, therefore, not right to assume the spirit of the struggle is dead.”

He said if the recommendations had been implemented, the issue of IPOB would not have escalated to where it is today, insisting, “I think the government goofed for deploying military operation to suppress IPOB activities, this is nothing but the fact that Nigeria is in civil war.”