By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Nigeria’s governing All Progressives Congress (APC) has alleged that planned nationwide protest is a plot to overthrow the country’s President, Bola Tinubu who is little above one year in office.
Tinubu sworn-in May 29, 2023 succeeded Muhammadu Buhari of the same political family that has help power since 2015 after the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lost power.
Following his election, the Nigerian leader has introduced raft of policies that has put pressure on the fragile economy, including the removal of subsidy on petroleum, which increased the cost of transportation, staple food and skyrocketed cost-of-living to a record high.
Arising from frustration of citizens of the over 200 million population, groups have announced readiness to stage a peaceful protest across the country from Aug 1—10 to draw the attention of government on the need to address hunger issues, cost of goods and services, insecurity, food crisis and poverty in the West African country.
But at a press conference at the ruling party’s national secretariat in Abuja on Monday, chairmen of the party in the 36 states of the federation and the FCT said it would not allow “undemocratic forces” overthrow the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the name of protest.
The party leaders said they would mobilize its structure from wards to the national level from July 29, to August 11, 2024, to “re-echo the laudable projects and the programmes of President Tinubu.”
He stated, “As the ruling party, we are prepared to meet every contestant in 2027 but we will not fold our arms and allow undemocratic forces to topple the government we worked so hard to elect into office. That will be a disservice to the good people of Nigeria who freely gave us this mandate”, Chairman of Cross River State chapter and Secretary of the APC States Chairmen Forum, Alphonsus Ogar Eba stated.
“We call on all patriotic Nigerian to resist any attempt by any one or any group of persons to intimidate them into unorganised protest likely to endanger the peace we currently enjoy as a nation. We call on patriots to join forces with security agencies to report any criminal element who attempt to carry out any act of violence.
“Against this background, in the next two weeks commencing from today 29th July to 11th August 2024 and from this press briefing, which shall follow with a solidarity rally by all structures of our party across all political wards, LGAs and states capital including Abuja FCT, we shall embark on peaceful rally to re echo the laudable projects and the programs of President Tinubu with greater vigor to protect and defend our democracy from any attack by hoodlums or some criminal elements who wants to carry out violent protest.
“All our party men and concerned Nigerian in other political parties, are enjoined to stand firm in protection of democracy. It should be noted that violent protest being contemplated by the faceless group as contained in their charter of demand will annihilate the democratic ideals which all political parties subscribed to.
“This is unacceptable and we must resist it in the most civil manner by sensitising innocent and peace loving people of our country about the plans of failed politicians who want to get power through every illegitimate means by inciting ignorant Nigerians to embark on violent protest.
“Protest is a constitutional right when done through the rule of law. However, security reports have shown that it is counterproductive to embark on this protest this time as there are sinister arrangements by some unpatriotic persons to hijack the protest for the sole purpose of unleashing nefarious agenda to perpetrate violence and indulge in high level criminality reminiscent of the 2020 Endsars protest and the recent experience in Kenya.
“It is our humble view that this will worsen our already challenging socio economic situation and that is why we have decided to join our voices to make this ap
