A ranking member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Bamisile, has advised those planning to protest over harrowing hardship being experienced in the country to engage in dialogue with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government.
Bamisile, who is representing Ekiti South Federal Constituency II, said democracy is about dialogue, warning that protest intended to be peaceful may be hijacked by evil doers as witnessed during the coordinated protests to advocate for the abolition of Police’s Special Anti Robbery Squad(SARS) codenamed ‘#endsars’, under ex-President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.
Bamisile said these in a statement made available to journalists in Ado Ekiti, on Tuesday, advising the proponents of the proposed #endbadgovernance# protest to explore the option of negotiation.
The Chairman, House Committee on Delegated Legislation, stressed that it would be more rewarding and profitable for Nigerians, no matter how aggrieved to embrace dialogue at this trying time, than adopting the option of protest, which he said could be confrontational and counterproductive.
Bamisile added that the current hardship in the facets of high fuel pump price and skyrocketing food prices called for concerted efforts at both national and subnational levels, for Nigerians to breathe a sigh of relief, saying these accounted for the angst and anger in town.
“Protest is an alienable right of all Nigerians to agitate for any demand, provided that it will be peaceful and violence-free. But how sure are the proponents that these will be guaranteed bearing in mind what happened during the endsars protest that was hijacked by evil doers?
“Going by estimation, Lagos State lost over a trillion Naira property to endsars protest caused by burning of some of our national monuments . The organisers might mean well for the country, but they should bear in mind the political, ethnic and religious complexities of our nation.
“The country belongs to us all, nothing wrong in a coalition calling for good governance. This will be in the interest of all of us. But it has to be done in the most civilized fashion and dialogue remains the best international practice”.
In solving the raging crisis, particularly in making some of the federal government’s palliative initiatives workable, Bamisile appealed to state governors to distribute the food items supplied by Tinubu’s government fairly to buffer inflationary effect.
“Presently, the federal government is distributing 740 truckloads of rice to the 774 local governments in the country, besides the series of food palliatives that had been shared to states through our national reserves.
“Our governors must complement what the federal government was doing by making sure that these items get to the targeted population. The failure of this policy was fueling the anger in town.
“These reported cases of diversions in some states were disheartening and won’t be in the interest of anybody. I believe that citizens should begin to hold their leaders at the state level accountable for some of these wicked acts”.