Tinubu’s speech failed to address protest causes — Rights activists

In a reaction to President Bola Tinubu’s broadcast, a Port Harcourt-based lawyer and rights activist, Chief Justice Oguche, has said that while the speech outlined the President’s intentions and accomplishments, it failed to properly address the causes of the protest.

Also reacting, National Coordinator, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), Emmanuel Onwubiko, said the broadcast was silent on the fundamental economic miscalculations of the government that led to the protest in the first place.

The Guardian reports that Tinubu had addressed the nation on Sunday morning, four days after Nigerians across the country trooped out to the streets to protest widespread hunger and the high cost basic food items occasioned by the removal of fuel subsidy and the floating of the naira.

In Sunday’s address, Tinubu had given reasons his administration took some of its economic decisions and listed his achievements as president in the last 14 months.

But Oguche dismissed the president’s speech as lacking the balm to assuage the feelings of the aggrieved Nigerian.

“That speech cannot calm nerves and assuage the feelings of individuals who anchor their protests on hunger, deprivation, and want. It will most likely be unacceptable to those that crave a frontal reaction to the demands of the people.

“The President’s concerns about safety and security amidst the condolences for the dead and sympathy for the injured actually fit into a speech, but the accompanying subtle threats against troublemakers are unnecessary as it has always hit wrong lyrics with agitations,” he said.

Oguche insisted that a post-protest speech by a leader ought to be appealing and imploring to the conscience of the aggrieved persons in the manner of amelioration rather than a platform to reel out achievements in a manner of debunking agitated minds that felt he has fallen short of standards and expectations.

“Also, the theme of the protest was well spelled out and protesters have identified the core factors responsible for hunger, which is the removal of subsidy. Any sacrifice can be made by the authorities to quench hunger and wishy-washy explanations and doctrinaire on the state of the economy.”

He insisted that there must be a remarkable understanding of the welfarist principle as embodying all the policy objectives and goals of the government.

“Constitutionally speaking, the declaration of removal of subsidy solely and unilaterally at the inauguration ground falls completely on the ground. The President cannot therefore hedge and equivocate on the issue when the groundswell of public opinion demands an immediate reversal.

“So, the whole purport of the speech, which obviously is targeted at stemming the snowballing crises, gets drowned in the murky waters over the President’s failure to address the critical issue of hunger straightforwardly as it should be, but suggested for dialogue.

“Hunger here is not just being bandied by Nigerians as an instrument of protest whimsical but as a real-life threatening situation that calls for immediate attention and solution. The President should have addressed the issue in its clear urgency and imperatives in his speech and not defer it to a later-day dialogue that will only liken to the several dubious and impotent ones it held with labour leaders,” Oguche said.

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Meanwhile Onwubiko, said the broadcast was silent on the fundamental economic miscalculations of the government in floating the national currency, thereby eroding and devaluing the Naira, and creating price instability and erosion of purchasing power of the currency.

He argued that the policy of letting the naira float in a bid to satisfy World Bank and International Monetary Fund was a fundamental breach of the extant law that set up the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

According to Onwubiko, no nation can comfortably claim sovereignty when its national currency is left to the vagaries of market forces.

Onwubiko frowned that the ill-conceived policy of floating the naira against the dollar and pounds, which triggered high cost of living, was not addressed while the claimed reduction of price of 50kg rice down to N40,000 was a phantom story meant to deceive gullible Nigerians.

“We expected the President to speak on the unconstitutional deployment of lethal weapons to disperse crowds in places such as Kano where looting of public and private property took place instead of the use of rubber bullets, water cannons and canisters, but he chose to forget about this major violation of the right to life of the citizens,” he said.