Protesters leave Lagos ground, desert Abuja, Benin venues

Protesters at Ojota Lagos ground

Protesters leave Lagos ground, desert Abuja, Benin venues

The few people who gathered at the Freedom Park in Lagos early in the day dispersed after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s broadcast.

The Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja was also deserted.

The popular Ring Road in Benin, centre of the protest since Thursday was cleared yesterday after the President’s broadcast.

The President told the protesting youths in his 25-minute address to the nation to call off their three-day-old action, saying he had heard them loud and clear.

Immediately after the broadcast, a disagreement broke out among the demonstrators at the Freedom Park in Lagos.

One of the leaders of the protesters announced to others the need to shelve the protest, having heard from the President.

He suggested that it should be put off till October 1 to give the President more time to evaluate the situation and take further action.

But a counter instruction was given almost immediately by other protesters, who said the President did not adequately address their demands.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Paul Okafor appealed to them to disperse because of the need for peace to reign in Lagos.

Thereafter, the protesters left in droves but the security agents remained on the ground.

Sanwo-Olu opens engagement channels

Lagos Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu announced channels of engagement, following the discontinuation of action by those protesting against economic hardship in the state.

The announcement was made in a statement by Mr. Gbenga Omotoso, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy.

It reads: “The Lagos State Government expresses appreciation to the protesters in Lagos for their peaceful conduct and their announcement of an end to their action following the broadcast by the president.”

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A helicopter was hovering over the FCT for the better part of the day.

But all was quiet in the Federal Capital city.

Vehicular movement was easy but roads were largely empty.

It may also be because it was a Sunday when most people were indoors.

At every major intersection, security men were stationed to keep an eye on the environment.

Some of the few vehicles on the road, especially commercial vehicles, had leaves affixed on their windscreen, an indication that they were for peace.

Security around the Presidential Villa remained heightened.

The Kubwa-Zuba Motorway was free. Normal movement of traffic was observed.

Movement from Karshi town to other parts of the nation’s capital city was smooth.

Benin venue cleared

The protesters in Edo State yesterday suspended the protest after the President’s speech.

Immediately after the broadcast, the protesters removed the podium at Ring Road, near the palace of the Oba of Benin, Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Ewuare II.

Barricades on the major roads linking the ever-busy Ring Road were also cleared by the protesting youths, thereby paving the way for free vehicular and human movements by motorists and pedestrians respectively, without harassment or molestation of passersby and commuters, but policemen were on standby, in order to prevent the breakdown of law and order.

Church services at venues

In Osun and Plateau states, the demonstrators who insisted on continuing with the protest held church services at the venues.

At the popular Olaiya Bridge in Osogbo, Osun State where the service was held, leaders of the protest were collecting offerings from the demonstrators to make purchases.

“The reason for the offering is to enable us to get logistics for this protest. Anybody can drop his offering as we pass through the streets,’’ said one of the protesters who identified himself as Bishop.

“We are continuing the protest tomorrow (today). We are not backing down. The President has not addressed our demands,” Bishop added.

Emmanuel Olowu, secretary of the state’s Coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) led the service.

His sermon was taken from Exodus 14 after the praise and worship session.

Olowu, who noted that God ordains leaders, including the president, governors and lawmakers, spoke about the essence of “good leadership and followers.”

According to him, both are synonymous with the country’s current predicament.

Olowu said Nigerians from different religious backgrounds “must come together to support the cause of entrenching good governance.”

Chairman of the Democratic Socialist Movement in the state, Alfred Alagbe, read Gen. 41:13 and Matthew 21:9-11.

At the end of the service at about 12:27 p.m, the protesters continued with the protest, chanting solidarity songs.

Soyinka: How to handle protesters

Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, called on security agents to be tactical in the handling of the protests to avoid further fatalities.

Soyinka made the call in a statement he issued after President Tinubu’s address to the nation.

The statement was titled ‘’The Hunger March as Universal Mandate.’’

The Nobel laureate and global literature icon was also concerned that the President’s broadcast was silent on the actions of the security agents.

He cautioned against unprofessional conduct by security agents that could hurt protesters “who are merely asking for bread.”

According to him, a hard approach to the protests could lead to “more desperate upheavals.”

Soyinka said: “Even tear gas remains questionable in most circumstances; using it is certainly an abuse in situations of clearly peaceful protest.

“Hunger marches constitute a universal S.O.S, not peculiar to the Nigerian nation.

“They belong, indeed, in a class of their own, never mind the collateral claims emblasoned on posters.

“They serve as summons to governance that a breaking point has been reached and, thus, a testing ground for governance awareness of public desperation,” he said.

Soyinka said the tragic response to the hunger marches in parts of the country constituted a retrogression that took the nation backwards.

The statement reads: “I set my alarm clock for this morning to ensure that I did not miss President Bola Tinubu’s impatiently awaited address to the nation on the current unrest across the nation.

“His outline of government’s remedial action since inception, aimed at warding off just such an outbreak, will undoubtedly receive expert and sustained attention both for effectiveness and in content analysis.

“My primary concern, quite predictably, is the continuing deterioration of the state’s seizure of protest management, an area in which the presidential address fell conspicuously short.

“Such short-changing of civic deserving, regrettably, goes to arm the security forces in the exercise of impunity and condemns the nation to a seemingly unbreakable cycle of resentment and reprisals.

“Live bullets as a state response to civic protest – that becomes the core issue.

“The tragic response to the ongoing hunger marches in parts of the nation, and for which notice was served, constitutes a retrogression that takes the nation even further back than the deadly culmination of the watershed ENDSARS protests.

“It evokes pre-independence – that is, colonial – acts of disdain, a passage that induced the late-stage pioneer Hubert Ogunde’s folk opera Bread and Bullets, earning that nationalist serial persecution and proscription by the colonial government.

“The nation’s security agencies cannot pretend unawareness of alternative models for emulation, civilised advances in security intervention. Need we recall the nationwide 2022/23 editions of what is generally known as the Yellow Vest movement in France?”

“Perhaps it is time to make such scenarios compulsory viewing in policing curriculum. In all of the coverage that I watched, I did not catch one single instance of a gun leveled at protesters, much less fired at them even during direct physical confrontations.

“The serving of bullets where bread is pleaded is ominous retrogression, and we know what that eventually proves – a prelude to far more desperate upheavals, not excluding revolutions.

“The time is long overdue, surely, to abandon, permanently, the anachronistic resort to lethal means by the security agencies of governance. No nation is so underdeveloped, materially impoverished, or simply internally insecure as to lack the will to set an example.

“All it takes is to recall its own history, and then exercise the will to commence a lasting transformation, inserting a break in the chain of lethal responses against civic society.

“Today’s marchers may wish to consider adopting the key songs of Hubert Ogunde’s bread and bullets if only to inculcate a sense of shame in the continuing failure to transcend the lure of colonial inheritance where we all were at the receiving end. One way or the other, this vicious cycle must be broken.”