EndBadGovernance Protests, a Huge Success, Says Sowore
Ikechukwu Aleke in Abuja
One of the organisers of the EndBadGovernance protests, and publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, said that the just concluded 10-day nationwide protest against hunger and bad policies of the incumbent administration was a huge success.
Sowore, who was the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the 2023 elections, noted that President Bola Tinubu’s regime is now toeing the path of arresting and trying poor and innocent citizens over charges of plotting regime change. He however, asserted that the latest move by the central government is a new low that will fail woefully like others before it.
A statement by Sowore, said, “Let’s be clear about the intention of the Tinubu regime; they want to begin an unprecedented hunting down of regime opponents using a familiar but worn-out technique accusing every Tom, Dick and Harry of regime change offences. They have already commenced with journalists, activists, artisans and even the labour movement @NLCHeadquarters, several persons are in detention, offices and homes arbitrarily raided around Nigeria as we speak in Kano, Kaduna, Abuja, Borno and several places. But like others before it, these efforts have failed even before they commenced.”
He explained that since the end of the magically successful #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria revolt, which lasted 10 solid days despite all odds, oddities, and obstacles thrown its way, some elements of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), have opportunistically thrown caution to the wind and proclaimed that the protests were organised for “regime change.”
He noted that though it is up to the Nigerian people, like other climes around the world, to determine when to discard any set of people in power if they continue to collaborate aggressively and coercively to hurt their essence and existence, this falsehood must be placed clearly where it belongs.
Sowore, said the regime of Bola Tinubu only wanted to blackball Nigerians into a state of dereliction by using the nationwide success of the revolt against hunger orchestrated by his government policies to permanently and strategically shut down the civic space in Nigeria.
According to him, “it was not a mistake that as soon as the protests were barely over, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudden Abbas, spuriously introduced a bill known as the “Counter-Subversion Bill” specifically aimed at erasing and degrading Nigerians’ rights to assemble, express, and organise freely against bad governance.
“As expected, that bill died a natural death a few hours after Nigerians knew of it. A video in circulation of an interview granted by Kaduna State Governor, @ubasanius tells of the sorry state of affairs of our country. In an attempt to revise history, he claimed that as a former activist, he organised several protests, but that they were not aimed at toppling the government”.
Sowore noted that the governor curiously mentioned Senator Shehu Sanni, “but these are lies aimed at obfuscating his real intentions”. The truth, he said, is that almost all Nigerian regimes resort to using “Treason, Subversion And Now Cybercrime” as tools for suppressing dissent as soon as the public rises to challenge their policies.
Noting that the above has become the standard blackmail, Sowore said that even Senator Shehu Sanni was framed by the military and tried and sentenced for coup plotting and thrown into jail for an offence he never committed.
“Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognised. In the first, it is ridiculed; in the second, it is opposed; in the third, it is regarded as self-evident,” he concluded.
