ACF rejects calls for 10-day nationwide protest

Northern leaders, under the ambit of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), has rejected calls for 10-day protest by some youth organizations to redress the hardship and hunger in the country.

ACF revealed that the Forum has been monitoring pronouncements for and against planned 10-day nationwide protests, commencing, 1st August 2024, organised by some anonymous group(s).

“Information on social media hing the action on dissatisfaction with prevailing vortex of socioeconomic and political challenges facing Nigerian citizens consequent to policies of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led Administration since it took office in 2023”.

In a statement by the National Publicity Secretary of ACF, Professor Tukur Muhammed-Baba on Tuesday, “ACF acknowledges that Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution and other universal/international conventions, guarantee citizens inalienable rights to express grievances over living conditions and aspirations, including freedom of assembly, demonstration and protests”.

“ACF also acknowledges the current existential challenges that Nigerians live with are dire, worsened by the profligate, insensitive and ostentatious lifestyles and attitudes of Nigeria’s elected representatives and other public officials, which has resulted in palpable despair, disaffection and widespread anger for ordinary citizens.”

However, the Forum hinted that ACF is alarmed about the goals of the proposed protest and cannot support it due to facts that there has been no robust engagement with representatives of the people over accountability and good governance.

According to Professor Muhammed-Baba, “what is discernible from the justification and demands from the promoters of the protests are largely incoherent, and poorly articulated with their likelihood of success very doubtful”.

“None of the reasons for the planned action directly addresses the North’s most pressing current challenge: debilitating insecurity which remains unsolved and continues to wreak havoc on citizens. The exercise fundamental rights to protest or demonstrate are exercised at the individual’s discretion, and no one should be forced to do so”.

“Ten-day shutdown of Nigeria will be much too long, counterproductive and disruptive. It comes as no surprise that already, groups and organisations across Nigeria have been coming out to dissociate from the planned protests. It is unthinkable that the millions of Nigeria that feed from meagre daily earnings can sustain a close down for ten days”.

Prof Muhammed-Baba continued: “With the bulk of its population facing existential economic and political challenges, made worse by devastating insecurity and terrorism, the protest may entail a possible lockdown of the whole country which will worsen lives of the people in the North even further”.

He further stressed that under current circumstances, the protests have the real potential to turn violent and/or be hijacked by criminals”.

The Northern Group’s spokesman added that ACF’s concerns are aggravated by some trending posts on social media where an anonymous voice not only threatens anarchy but also ominously urges one of the Presidential candidates in the 2023 election, to flee to England ahead of the planned protest, reminiscent of the situation in Nigeria ahead of the 1966 bloody military coup”.

“Under the circumstances, a rush to protest will be counterintuitive, disruptive, and counterproductive. ACF therefore unequivocally rejects the call for participation in such a course of action and calls on the people of the North to decline participation.”

“Nevertheless, ACF also calls on all authorities, at the local government, state and federal levels, to urgently address obvious shortcomings in current approach to public policy-making and implementation to alleviate the dire existential conditions that Nigerian citizens live with”, Muhammed-Baba added.