Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has faulted the nationwide address by President Bola Tinubu, saying it failed to address the brutal crackdown of #EndBadGovernance protesters by security agencies.
Angry Nigerians had taken to major cities across the country to lament the high cost of living, hardship, hunger, and poverty blamed on policies of the Federal Government like the removal of fuel subsidy and the floating of the naira.
In the past four days, some persons were killed as the protests turned violent in some states. Worried by the situation, President Tinubu addressed Nigerians in his first nationwide speech after the demonstrations.
The President called for calm, insisting that there was no going back on the subsidy removal.
But in a statement on Sunday, Soyinka specifically criticised the steps reeled out by the President since the protests started.
“His outline of the government’s remedial action since inception, aimed at warding off just such an outbreak, will undoubtedly receive expert and sustained attention both for effectiveness and in content analysis. My primary concern, quite predictably, is the continuing deterioration of the state’s seizure of protest management, an area in which the presidential address fell conspicuously short,” Soyinka said.
To Soyinka, the “nation’s security agencies cannot pretend unawareness of alternative models for emulation, civilized advances in security intervention”.
“Such short-changing of civic deserving, regrettably, goes to arm the security forces in the exercise of impunity and condemns the nation to a seemingly unbreakable cycle of resentment and reprisals.
“Live bullets as a state response to civic protest – that becomes the core issue. Even tear gas remains questionable in most circumstances, certainly an abuse in situations of clearly peaceful protest.
