The Archbishop of Abuja, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama, has reacted to #EndSARS protests in the country, saying it is the product of many years of government’s stubbornness by refusing to listen to Nigerians who have been crying out for a change that improves their lives.
Kaigama who stated this during a homily at the celebration of the 90th anniversary of Holy Ghost Parish, Makurdi, said the action of the youths was a clear demonstration of what the Catholic Bishop’s Conference (CBC) had been talking about, expressing the hope that their protests would awake the political will in the leaders and in everyone who should do something about it.
He said: “Let us not pretend that there is no problem in the country. Let us not behave like the Ostrich that buries its head in the sand and behave like there is no danger. “There is danger. The brutality we are suffering in the hands of the police is enough and the youths have said it.
“The Catholic conference has been saying it. Stop corruption, stop corruption so that the wealth of the nation can go round. We kept saying that but they didn’t listen. Now, the youth has said it. I hope it will wake us all and I hope that the next political dispensation will be a different one.
“Not of selfish interest but with values. We have been driven by selfish, self-centered materialistic interest, by religious, tribal partisan political sentiments and that is why we can’t grow. We make one step forward and three steps backwards, the youths are determined to change this."
Meanwhile, a coalition of human rights activists has said the recent #EndSARS protests in the country against police brutality, is only but a tip of the iceberg, and a sign of what is to come should the Buhari administration fails to heed to the demands of the people.
The coalition known as the New Nigeria Network is made up of the Take It Back Movement, Radical Agenda Movement in the Nigeria Bar Association, Federation of Informal Workers’ Organisation of Nigeria, Coalition for Revolution, Movement for a Socialist Alternative, and Socialist Workers and Youth League among others.
The coalition issued a seven-point demand to the Nigerian Government in relation to the agitation to end police brutality in the country.
Speaking during a meeting in Lagos, Chairman of RAMNIBA, Adesina Ogunlana, said investigations into the brutality against peaceful demonstrators by security agents during the #EndSARS protests would be followed up by activists.
Among several other demands, the coalition is seeking the immediate replacement of the Inspector-General of Police; Mohammed Adamu, the immediate reversal of power and fuel price hikes; immediate stoppage of jumbo salaries and allowances for political office holders; all public officials to be placed on national minimum wage; the drastic upward funding of education and health sectors and immediate deprivatization of power and oil sectors nationalisation to be restored.
Ogunlana added that the nationwide protest had shown that Nigerians were waking up to stand against oppression, noting that the demonstration is a revolution waiting to befall the country.