Timing Of Planned Protest Wrong – CSOs

Citing mounting tension across the country as the current hardship escalates, some rights groups are opposed to the proposed national protest by organized labour.

After reviewing the situation nationwide, the Coalition of Civil Society Groups on Transparency and Accountability has warned that democratic forces may hijack the planned nationwide protest by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC).

At a press conference in Abuja, the coalition jointly led by Danesi Momoh and Igwe Ude-Umanta, appealed  to organized labour have a rethink on its resolve to embark on the protest and engage the federal government through other viable means.

One of the members of the coalition,  Empowerment for Unemployed Youth Initiative, which coordinated the press conference, feared that labour may inadvertently play into a bigger destabilisation plot that could throw Nigeria into a chaos.

Momoh said it is important for the NLC to “reassess the situation with stoicism and circumspection.”

He said, “The problem is about the timing and the reasons. In a country where people are beginning to hijack vehicles conveying food items and looting them; where some distressed citizens are seeking the slightest opportunity to vent both their real and imagined frustration on society.’

how did the NLC arrive at holding national protests as the best available solution to addressing their issues?,” the group queried.

“The security optics for a national protest by an organization as large and strategic as the NLC is not looking good at all. This is a possible recipe for a national chaos. It must be avoided. We read the statement by the President of NLC, Comrade Joe Ajaero, in which he was confident of a peaceful outcome of the protests, because according to him, the NLC is patriotic and have always been peaceful.