… Urges Youth To Be Peaceful
…We don’t want a repeat of #ENDSARS-CLO
The Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) has called on the federal government and its security agencies not to use force and violence to stop the national protest planned by Nigerian youth for August 2024.
In a press statement that was made available to The Eagle Online, the Executive Director of CLO, Comrade Ibuchukwu Ohabuenyi Ezike, also appealed to protesters to be peaceful and lawfully conduct themselves and their activities.
He said: “We recall that the #ENDSARS national protest staged by the youth across the country a few years ago, turned violent and bloody, arising from the behaviour of overzealous security officers.
“CLO maintains that protests across the world are legitimate and democratic expressions by the citizens against their governments in the event of implementation of wicked, heinous, and anti-people policies that affect the people like it is the case in Nígeria.
“In Nigeria, today, things have fallen apart and the center can no longer hold. Nígerian families are starving but refuse dumps are filled with leftovers by their families and dogs. Brilliant pupils have been withdrawn from schools because of poverty and the increasing cost of quack education.
“Graduates who left schools over ten years ago roam the streets without jobs with their flamboyant certificates. Our people die like fowls because of lack of quality hospitals, trained personnel, and fake drugs while those in government-run overseas countries treat malaria and headaches.”
He noted that other things that had fallen apart in Nigeria were the selling of good and well-working national institutions and corporations like the Nigerian Airways, the Seaports, Railways, the telecommunications, and Nipost, among others, which all provided massive employment and other opportunities for our people to themselves, relations and associates.
Ezike also said that agriculture which provided huge employment opportunities for Nigerians, raw materials for industries, and made good returns for the running of the Nigerian government, had been neglected and abandoned.
“While this is the scenario, the killer government has flooded Nigerian soil with Genetically Modified Crops in place of our natural, organic ones to continue to kill Nigerians in our millions to satisfy their masters’ desires.”
He opined that the economic hardship was also causing wives to leave their marriages to join the wolves while some families were selling their children to enable them to feed.
The human rights fighter said that refineries are abandoned so that the government will continue to refine overseas at larger costs to the country.
His words: “Only late last year, the Tinubu Presidency lied to Nígerians that the Port Harcourt refinery had been fixed and would be put to use in 2024.
“They also promised to fix Wari and Kaduna refineries this year. The year is coming to an end and it has been stories as usual.
“Where will we end our pathetic and ugly stories? Our roads have become total death traps, pensioners’ pension funds are stolen whereas millions of retirees have died without receiving their gratuities.
“The only country where snakes, rodents, and cockroaches swallow money all over the world is Nigeria. What a society of shameless, unconscionable, and irredeemable looters.
“As Nígerians are starving and facing extreme poverty and hardship, the crooks in government are stashing billions in hard currencies in their banks in foreign lands as well as investing in those places.
“In the face of these travails and disturbing lifestyles by our politicians and families, they expected Nigerian youth and indeed people to stand with hands akimbo and watch helplessly.
“Given the foregoing, CLO supports the nationwide protests until these hawks implement their demands or resign from office. We call on all suffering Nígerian peoples to give maximum support to the youth.
“We only caution both parties to tow the part of peace as we will document any grave human rights infractions committed while the protest lasted.”
