Get Guardian on Google
The #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria protesters have accused President Bola Tinubu of ordering the killings of protesters in Kano, Abuja, and other parts of the country.
[ad]
They said the President also has no right to call off a protest he did not start.
They accused the president of being insensitive to the plight of the people. The protesters returned to Ojota, Lagos, hours after the president’s nationwide address.
Addressing a press conference before the kickoff of day five of the #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria protest, one of the protest leaders, Taiwo Hassan Soweto, said: “President Tinubu has no power under the Nigerian Constitution to call off the protest he did not start, a protest directed against him, and it’s the highest level of over-self-importance. It’s a total disregard from a President who has put Nigeria in this condition of hardship to address us and ask us to end our protest.
“We felt it’s important to come here today after the president’s address and our decision is very simple, after he called us unprintable names. We are not slaves, we have the right to march, and nobody can stop us. President Tinubu’s speech is an exercise in futility. The President did not remember to mention just one of our over 21-point demands, which means he’s only playing with us.
[ad]
“He repeated the abuse that we are being sponsored in his speech. We are telling the president that though we are young, we are not fools. The idea that somebody has to manipulate us before we know that we are in hunger and hardship is an insult that we reject.”
When asked about the President’s call for dialogue, he said: “The offer of dialogue is an exercise in deceit because before he left the room where he made the broadcast, Nigerians were being killed by the police and army in Sokoto, Jigawa, Kano, Abuja, and Borno.
“The National Coordinator, Take It Back, Comrade Adaramoye Michael, was abducted alongside two others by the DSS, and we don’t know their whereabouts. So, a government that wants to dialogue and continues killing and arresting is not ready for dialogue.
“If President Tinubu is ready to dialogue, he has the right to assemble the corpses of our fallen heroes in a conference room and dialogue with them.
“The Congress is demanding the immediate dismissal of the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, and everyone that has perpetrated the killings against our people.”
[ad]
