The Mayor of Urhoboland who is one of the major critics of the planned protest, Eshanekpe Israel a.k.a Akpodoro has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to address Nigerians to end the ongoing national protest themed: #endbadgovernance, otherwise known as hunger protest in the country.
A national broadcast by the President, Akpodoro argued, will douse the tension and the reign of criminalities across the nation saying talking to Nigerians could placate the protesters to stop the “embarrassing rampage against the current administration and restore normalcy in the country.”
Akpodoro described the protest as a distraction to the president as he called on those he called ‘fifth columnists to allow the president deliver the dividends of democracy to the good people of Nigeria who overwhelmingly voted for him on February 25, 2023.”
The Urhobo-born Mayor also called on the president to immediately arrest the sponsors of the protest in Kano, Kaduna, Borno and other states where the supposed peaceful protest culminated into violence occasioned by looting of both private, public properties, saying the fears of the government and well-meaning Nigerians who appealed against the “tendentious and premeditated reign of terror on innocent Nigerians by hoodlums have been confirmed in the ugly incidences recorded across the states save for few.
Mayor Akpodoro made the call in Abuja on the sideline of a well attended stakeholders meeting held at his instance to review developments arising from the “unwarranted civil disobedience” noting that it is now clear that the sponsors of the so-called #endbadgovernance protest have the sinister motives including but not limited to throwing Nigeria into anarchy for them to achieve their aims tucked in the protest.
According to the Urhobo-born former warlord, the sponsors of the protest are unpatriotic elements who are hell-bent on undermining democracy in the country.
He stressed that nations all over the world are experiencing economic meltdown, stating that the hardship arising from the reformative administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not peculiar to Nigeria.
He restated his earlier position that politicians who are bad losers are the enablers of the riotous situations in the country and they a full blown anarchy to blackmail the current administration adding that security apparatus should rise to the occasion and end the premeditated rage in the country.
President Tinubu’s administration has set the nation on the path of economic recovery, Akpodoro said as he further reiterated the need to embrace dialogue in national interest and solidarity saying, the protest is an ill wind that will blow no one any good.
The Urhobo Mordern ruler bemoaned the killings in Niger State, Kano, and other states where he said criminal elements took advantage of the protest to visit mayhem on the innocent citizens who also have the right to peace.
“Roads were blocked and bornfires made in major cities all in their bid to provoke reactions from the security agencies. The protest has been criminalised as hoodlums, street urchins filed out in their numbers to needlessly loot government and private properties.
“For instance, a secretariat in one of states in the North was broken into, and the iron fence was scattered and ferried away by the so-called hungry protesters. How would an iron quench the so much taunted hunger that is used as a plank to launch out their arsenals for crimes?
“A particular one was seen making efforts to remove traffic light in Kano perhaps to quench his hunger. Such is the ignorance of the miscreants that the sponsors of the ‘days of rage” unleashed on our nation.
“The president must stop it lest it will escalate. My surrise is, where are the mouthpiece of the criminals, the counsels of the rule of law and those whose joy it is to see Nigeria bleed, the hypocritical activists who go on national televisions arrogating to themselves the monopoly of the understanding of our laws/constitutions? The enablers of the raging criminalities must be apprehended immediately,” the vociferous modern ruler stated
