Protest against economic hardship not treason, Afenifere tells Tinubu

The pan-Yoruba social-cultural organization, Afenifere, has expressed worries over the Bola Tinubu administration’s labelling of hunger protests in Nigeria as a treasonable offence, saying it betrays inalienable rights of citizens to make logical demands.

The body also stressed that you can get if there is a clear case of economic mismanagement by the current government, by removing subsidy and imposing hardship on people against their expectations for good governance.

Afenifere, in a release by its deputy national leader, HRM Oba Oladipo Olaitan, and signed by Justice Faloye, National Publicity Secretary, called for the immediate and unconditional release of hunger protesters’ charged with treason

The body also advised President Tinubu’s administration against slipping into a dictatorship that criminalises the inalienable right to protest for self-preservation and upholding of social contracts.

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The body noted that citizens have rights in a democracy to protest peacefully, adding that those who turn violent during protests need to be charged with nothing more than criminal wilful destruction of property, not treason.

According to the statement, “Dozens of protesters, both adults and underage, are in jail for exercising their democratic civil rights of self-preservation, as millions have had their economic welfare destroyed with this administration’s economic policies that have more than halved real wages while subjecting people to hyper-inflation, long torturous queues at the petrol stations, unaffordable and still errant electricity supply.

“Rather than accuse the protesters of treason, the economic misgovernance of this administration is bordering between criminal negligence and economic treason, when one considers that the petrol and foreign exchange issues at the root of our economic hardship could have been resolved within 100 days of the administration by halving our import bill made up of fuels/oils – 33% ($21b), Vehicles 21% ($13.42 billion) and edibles 10% ($6.71b).

“Revelations following the Dangote Refinery show that the NNPC has a conflict of interests involving politician friends and family members that sabotage the proper operation of local refineries costing us $21b – 33% of our imports.

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“Also, instead of making all government tiers buy locally assembled cars to cut the second largest import bill, Vehicles costing $13.42 billion – 21% of our imports, the government went on a buying spree of thousands of foreign luxury cars costing billions.

There appears to be a clear case of economic treason, working against our national economic interests, because despite being clearly and logically stated in President Tinubu’s manifesto to remove subsides only after our refineries work, his government inexplicably removed petrol subsidies prematurely, thereby betraying public confidence in favour of foreign financial institutions, in return for more non-developmental loans that would be squandered.

“This economic sabotage is veiled by fallacious free market principles, when in actual fact the government is the monopolist supplier of foreign exchange, who dictates the value of Naira by the amount it chooses to supply, and a monopolist supplier of petrol, solely imported by NNPC and whose price is dictated by the value of Naira decided by the government.

“So the question is precisely which industries are expected to grow that is worth people’s sacrifices and suffering with renewed hope?”.

Afenifere, further stated that the government f8 hi not increase the pains of citizens who are ordinarily expressing their grievance over hunger in the land.

“The government can’t jail Nigerians feeling the pain and protesting its debilitating economic policies and fuel shortages due to a privatized NNPC that has privatized its retail wing to those monopolizing petrol stations.

“While NNPC favours continued importation of fuel, with our scarce dollars furnished by the government, the naira is devalued further, leading to cost-push hyper-inflation, wrongly addressed with high interests that shut down the economy and further worsen our unemployment and poverty rate.

“This is irresponsible economic strangulation of the masses tantamount to economic treason”.